Mikey's Worst Move Ever
by CJtheStoryteller
Summary: Set before 'Slash and Destroy.' Mikey has really gone and done it this time. He's lost Raph's most prized possession, and if the hotheaded turtle finds out, Mikey's toast. Can Donnie figure out a way to save his little brother's shell? **Winner of Funniest Comedy in the TMNT Universal Fanfiction Competition 2016** - *Cover art by Flaux*
1. Chapter 1 - Mikey's Confession

_****Winner of Funniest Comedy in the TMNT Universal Fanfiction Competition 2016****_

 _ ***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 _ ***Special Note: The amazing cover art for this story was provided by my incredibly talented and awesome friend, Flaux.**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: I am excited to share the first chapter of my new story, 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever,' with you. This is a humorous short story that I've been writing on the side when I need a little break from my other much more serious works. I really, really hope you enjoy it.**_ _ **Please favorite/follow/review this story if you want me to continue with it. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.**_

 _ ***For all of my 'You're Needed Here Now, Donnie' fans out there, do**_ _ **not**_ _ **fret. I will still do my best to post a new 'YNHND' chapter each week. I promise I won't just leave the story at that last cliffhanger ending . . . ;)**_

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – Mikey's Confession**

Fifteen-year-old Hamato Michelangelo sprinted through the open entrance of his immediate older brother's laboratory, instantly closing the thick, metal doors behind him and leaning into them as if the fate of the entire universe depended on him holding those doors shut. He planted his oversized feet firmly into the concrete floor and pushed against the doors with all of his might, calling upon his every last ounce of strength to keep the entrance secured with his shell. He even used all six of his toes for added leverage. He was leaning so heavily into the doors, he wasn't sure if his carapace could hold up to all of the pressure that he was putting on it. He was also starting to get a little worried that he might accidentally bust the doors down with his sheer awesomeness.

 _Oh man! D would so totally freak out if I broke his doors . . ._

As if on cue, Mikey's brother, Donatello, poked his head out from behind his computer monitor. He only did so for a second or two – just to assess the situation – before ducking back behind his screen and returning his gaze to what he had been working on prior to his younger brother's melodramatic entrance.

It wasn't that Donatello didn't care that his baby brother was clearly upset about something. He cared about Mikey more than anything. He _really_ did. It was just that Donnie was about ninety-nine percent certain that Mikey was just overreacting about some inconsequential thing, yet again. This had been Mikey's third hysterical visit to the lab today and it was only eleven-thirty in the morning. Mikey's first visit had been him panicking about the light in the refrigerator burning out. His second frantic visit had been because he had broken an arm off of one of his action figures. While they had both been relatively easy fixes for Donnie, the lair's resident handyman – or 'handyturtle' to be more accurate – Mikey had made these trivial things seem like they were ridiculously monumental. He had acted as though the world was coming to an end, all because he couldn't see where his Hungry Jorge Super Macho Burrito was and he couldn't play with his stupid Chris Bradford doll.

 _This is why young children should never be left unsupervised_ . . . Donnie thought wryly.

"Uh, you do realize those are sliding doors you're leaning against, right?" Came Donnie's slightly condescending voice.

Glancing towards Donnie, Mikey's face wrinkled up in confusion, as though he hadn't understood a single word that had just come out his big brother's mouth.

This was not an uncommon expression or occurrence from the youngest turtle, much to Donnie's irritation.

"Mikey, if you're trying to keep Raph out, leaning on sliding doors isn't going to do you any good. Why don't you try locking the doors?" Donnie asked, trying to keep the annoyance in his voice to a minimum. This wasn't the first time he had had to explain the concept of sliding doors to his younger sibling.

Slowly processing what Donnie had said, Mikey turned and studied the doors for a moment. When Donnie's words finally clicked in his head, Mikey let out an embarrassed little giggle and proceeded to lock the doors just as his genius brother had suggested.

With barricading the doors off of his to-do list, Mikey then spun around back towards Donnie and his eyes were wide with panic, alerting the purple-banded turtle that there was more to this situation than just hiding from Raph.

 _Here we go again_ . . . Donnie thought, trying and failing not to roll his eyes.

"Donnie! You gotta help me!" Mikey exclaimed, rushing over to Donnie's desk and bouncing around like the floor underneath his feet was scalding hot.

"I think ' _gotta'_ is a strong word . . . " Donnie said, not tearing his eyes away from his current project.

Mikey didn't let his older brother's obvious lack of interest discourage him any. He just went right on with what he had to say without missing a beat.

"I was in Raph's room, returning one of his comic books that I had borrowed – " Mikey started, but his older brother cut him off midsentence.

"And by 'borrowed' you mean that you snuck into Raph's room without permission and took something, right?" Donnie asked in a somewhat patronizing tone that was ultimately lost on Mikey. The youngest brother was too busy having his mind blown over Donnie's insane ability to read his thoughts. Mikey's big, blue eyes boggled with amazement as he gazed down at his older brother in awe. Donnie hadn't even been there in Raph's room, but yet he knew exactly what had happened.

 _Man! It's like D's psychotic or something_ . . . Mikey thought to himself. Had he said what he had been thinking aloud, Donnie would have promptly pointed out that the word he had been looking for was 'psychic.' As it was, Mikey remained blissfully ignorant, believing that his big brother was psychotic.

In the recesses of Mikey's brain, he was thinking back to a time when he and Donnie had been bored out of their shells while spying on some building for some dude to come out because Leo had insisted they needed to. Mikey, for the life of him, couldn't remember why they had been there in the first place, but he did remember being mesmerized over his brainiac brother's ability to read his mind that night, too.

" _Okay . . . I'm thinkin' of something green. Grrr-eeen-ah. Grrr-eeee-een."_

" _Is it Raphael again?"_

" _Man! You're good at this!"_

Chills drifted up and down Mikey's spine when he thought about his brother's uncanny gift. He wondered what else the genius knew about him that he hadn't told him about. Like who had actually stuck that quarter in the VCR . . . Or maybe even who had really snapped the antennae off of the TV last week.

"Dude, how do you know this stuff? It's like you're picking my brain!" Mikey exclaimed incredulously.

"Oh, now there's a frightening thought," Donnie quipped with a smirk.

"So, as I was saying . . . When I was in Raph's room bringing back that comic book that I was talking about, I kind of sort of saw something else that caught my eye," Mikey said, purposely leaving the sentence hanging for interpretation. He figured that his 'psychotic' brother probably already knew what he was going to say anyway, so he didn't see the need to finish the thought.

"And by 'kind of sort of saw something else' you mean you stole something of Raph's that didn't belong to you?" Donnie asked flatly.

"Okay . . . Now that's just creepy, dude! Get out of my head!" Mikey cried out, covering his ear slits with his hands as if to shield his noggin from his older brother's invisible mind probes.

"So, let me guess . . . You either broke the item you stole, or, you lost it. Hence, the reason you're trying to enlist my help," Donnie said wearily as he peered up at his baby brother from over the top of his computer monitor and waited for his response.

"Dude! What the heck? You're freakin' me out! Are you spying on me?" Mikey shrieked, struck by a sudden onset of paranoia.

"Yeah, Mikey . . . You got me. I set up cameras all over the lair so that I can sit around all day and spy on you guys, because I have nothing else better to do with my time. That's really what I've been doing in my lab all these years," Donnie said and his every word dripped with sarcasm. Sarcasm that went straight over his younger brother's bald head.

"Really?" Mikey asked and his eyes nearly doubled in size over the shock.

This time, Donnie didn't even bother to try to stop himself from rolling his eyes skyward. He even added a facepalm and a head shake to the mix just to better demonstrate his exasperation with the conversation. To say that his little brother was gullible would have been a severe understatement. It had taken Donnie ten-plus years to convince Mikey that the moon wasn't made of Gouda cheese after Raph had convinced the youngest otherwise.

"No, Mikey. I'm not spying on you," Donnie stated, hoping that it wouldn't take another ten years to convince his younger brother that he wasn't, in fact, spying on them. He really needed to be more careful about what he said around his most impressionable brother.

Mikey nodded in response, but the look on his face told Donnie that he hadn't been entirely persuaded.

 _Great! Now he's going to tear the whole lair apart in search of hidden cameras. Just like he did when he thought we were being invaded by gremlins . . ._ Donnie thought disdainfully.

"Seriously, Mikey. It was just a lucky guess. So which one is it?" Donnie asked, intentionally attempting to change the subject matter.

"Which one is what?" The youngest turtle asked, scrunching up his face once again, visibly baffled by the latest question his older brother had posed.

Donnie sighed audibly. Sometimes talking to Mikey was the verbal equivalent of beating one's head against a wall.

"Did you break one of Raph's things _or_ did you lose it?" Donnie asked, this time, making sure to be much more specific with his line of inquiry.

"Oh, that . . . Well, I guess I kind of lost it," Mikey said and he nervously began to tap the tips of his forefingers together in front of him. It was a sure sign that there was more to the story than met the eye.

"Mikey . . . What aren't you telling me?" Donnie groaned, knowing full well that he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear. He didn't need to be a genius to know that his little brother had gone and done something foolish.

"Heh, heh," Mikey laughed uneasily and he rubbed the back of his neck. Yet another bad omen . . .

"Mikey!" Donnie snapped, patience gone and his project now forgotten. Mikey finally had his full, undivided attention.

"Okay, okay! The thing that I lost . . . Well, it wasn't really a thing . . . " Mikey said, staring down at the floor in shame.

"What did you _do_ , Mikey?" Donnie barked, getting that crazy look in his eyes that he always did when he was beyond stressed.

"Fine! It was Spike! The thing that I lost . . . it was Spike!"

* * *

 _ **To be continued . . .**_

 _ **Author's Note:**_ _ **Please favorite/follow/review if you want me to keep going with this story.**_


	2. Chapter 2 - Genius & Not-so Genius

_***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: Here is chapter 2 of 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever.' Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story so far. Also, thank you to those of you who have already 'favorited' and followed 'MWME'. I really, really appreciate it. Please favorite/follow/review this story if you are enjoying it. This is my first attempt at a comedy and I would love to know what you think. ;)**_

 _ ***Just a little information about this story . . . This is a prequel to my upcoming story, 'Slash's Revenge.' 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever' is a lighthearted short story that leads right into the episode 'Slash and Destroy.' The 'Slash's Revenge' story takes place three weeks after 'Slash and Destroy' and this one will be much, much darker.**_

 _ **As always, thanks for reading. I really hope you like it. CJ**_

* * *

 **Chapter 2 – The Genius and the Not-so Genius**

"You what?" Came Donnie's shrill voice and the question echoed throughout the entire lab so that it sounded like he had actually said the words about ten times. While the sound of his voice resonated in the air, he pushed himself up and out of his chair so that he could better demonstrate his frustration. His now-standing position gave him more free rein to toss his arms wildly about if he so desired.

"I lost Spike, okay?" Mikey mumbled, twisting a toe into the concrete floor, and then, apprehensively sinking his top teeth into his bottom lip.

"You took Spike out of Raph's room? Are you out of your shell?" Donnie screeched and his voice somehow climbed even higher than when he had said 'you what?' just a few seconds before.

"Shhh! Raph'll hear you, bro!" Mikey said, holding his hands up and dismissively tut-tutting his older brother whose eyes now looked like they were about to pop right out of his skull.

"Do you have any idea what Raph will do to us when he finds out Spike is missing? He'll break both of our shells!" Donnie cried out, still several decibel levels above what Mikey felt comfortable with. Especially since he knew that Raph was currently sitting on the beanbag chair in the pit of the lair, not too far from his techno brother's lab.

"Dude, you need to chillax. Why would Raph break _your_ shell? I'm the one who lost Spike," Mikey said matter-of-factly, not sure what the heck his brainy brother was freaking out about. Sometimes, he swore that Donnie's mask was tied on too tight, because the genius tended to get all spun up over even the littlest of things.

Of course, losing Raph's beloved pet turtle wasn't exactly the littlest of things . . . It was kind of a great big thing now that Mikey was really thinking about.

"Are you familiar with the ad hominem 'guilt by association?'" Donnie asked, slightly calmer, but the pitch of his voice was still a couple of steps higher than normal. It meant that he was still wigging out on the inside.

In response to Donnie's question, Mikey offered nothing but a blank expression, visually confirming that he was not at all familiar with the phrase.

"It means that Raph is gonna kill me, too, just for associating with you. It's a kill the messenger kind of thing," Donnie groaned, massaging his temples with his fingertips in a vain attempt to settle himself down. It was crucial that he regain his ability to think straight. Both of their shells were on the line here and he certainly couldn't count on his little brother to come up with any kind of feasible plan.

"You're totally overreacting, D. Raph wouldn't clobber someone for no . . . good . . . reason . . . " Even as the words were parting his lips, Mikey realized how ridiculous they sounded.

"This is Raph we're talking about, Mikey," Donnie stated the obvious.

"You're right . . . What are we gonna do?" Mikey asked and his eyes got all big and shimmery. He then held his balled up hands underneath his jaw, as if almost begging for an answer.

Narrowing his reddish-brown eyes and scrunching up his face, Donatello tapped a finger against his chin, caught up in deep concentration. His brain was busy analyzing and sorting through the endless list of possibilities now flying through his head.

"Okay, where was the last place you saw Spike?" Donnie asked, folding his arms across his plastron and leaning against the edge of his desk as he waited for Mikey to respond.

"I had him in my room and we were – " Mikey started, but was soon cut off by Donnie's 'angry' voice.

"You took him to your room? That place is like a warzone! I've seen federally declared major disaster areas in better condition!" Donnie would have continued with his rant if not for his rational side kicking in.

 _Focus, Donnie. Blowing up at Mikey isn't going to solve anything right now. You need to figure out a way to save your shells from Raph_ . . . _You can yell at Mikey later_ , Donnie mentally reasoned with himself.

"Okay . . . so you took Spike and brought him into – "

"Borrowed," Mikey corrected, as if it mattered.

Donnie closed his eyes for a brief moment and drew in a deep, cleansing breath, trying to resist the urge to snap at Mikey again. Although chewing his little brother out at this point would be somewhat satisfying, it would ultimately be unproductive and not help matters any. Mostly because, afterwards, he'd have to squander precious time apologizing to Mikey for hurting his feelings.

"So you ' _borrowed'_ Spike and brought him into your bedroom," Donnie said, verbally retracing Mikey's steps to get a better understanding of the situation at hand. That was how the brainy turtle worked. He gathered facts and data, processed and analyzed the information collected, formulated working theories, and then, developed possible solutions. Donnie always liked to take multiple steps to problem solving. Mikey, on the other hand, didn't bother to take steps to solve problems. That was because nine times out of ten, Mikey _was_ the problem.

"Yeah, and we were playing with my action figures collection and . . . well . . . Spike wasn't really playing, I guess. He was just sort of sitting next to one of my figures, staring at it. He was kind of terrible at playing, to tell you the truth," Mikey said and his face fell into a frown.

"He's an unmutated pet box turtle who moves on par with the pace of a sloth. What exactly did you think he was going to contribute to the 'playdate?'" Donnie asked rather gruffly, but upon seeing Mikey's eyes suddenly light up, he held his hand up to stop his brother from answering that question. "You know what . . . forget I said that. So you were 'playing' with Spike, and then . . . " After a lengthy pause, Donnie had to motion for Mikey to continue, because his little brother had failed to figure out that that was why he had left the sentence unfinished.

"And then, when I turned my back for like five seconds to grab my Limited Edition Action Kick Unicorn Man off of the toy shelf, Spike was gone," Mikey said, splaying his hands out in front of his face so he could make a gesture of something magically going 'poof' and vanishing into thin air. As he did so, his eyes doubled in size for added effect.

"Seriously? You expect me to believe that Spike just up and disappeared in five seconds?" Donatello asked dryly. The look on his face was the very epitome of skepticism.

"Hey . . . I'm just telling you what I saw, bro. Well . . . actually, I'm telling what I didn't see . . . because I didn't actually see Spike disappear. I mean I saw him there, and then, I didn't see him there . . . because he was gone, dude. That's totally what I saw . . . or didn't . . . " Mikey rambled, talking in circles once again.

Donnie peered over at Mikey with highly cynical eyes. It was evident that the purple-clad turtle was not amused.

"We are talking about the _same_ Spike, here, right? The one who just stands there and chews on leaves all day?" Donnie questioned, squinting one eye as he spoke.

"That's the one," Mikey said, giving Donnie an enthusiastic thumbs up, which didn't seem all that appropriate given the seriousness of the subject matter they were discussing.

"All right . . . Now, let's just think this through rationally. Obviously, Spike is still somewhere in your room. That is, assuming that you kept your bedroom door closed the whole time, right?" Donatello inquired, just to verify that he had his facts straight.

"Like a turtle do!" Mikey exclaimed.

Donnie had never been entirely sure what that particular little catchphrase of Mikey's meant, as it technically was not a grammatically sound statement, but, in this instance, he presumed that it meant that his little brother was verifying that he had kept the door to his room closed.

"And, we know that Leo will be away from the lair until later this afternoon, because he's off doing some training exercise with Master Splinter. This is good, because Leo's absence exponentially reduces the likelihood of Raph unexpectedly storming off to his room in a huff . . . " Donnie theorized and he looked over at Mikey to make sure that his younger brother was still following along. Mikey was nodding, which didn't necessarily mean that he understood the conversation, but it did mean that he was still listening . . . or at least attempting to.

"So . . . all we have to do is keep Raph away from his room until we can find Spike. How hard can that be?" Donatello asked, trying to remain optimistic.

In a serious case of role reversal, it was Mikey who took the 'glass is half-empty' approach.

"Aw, man! If Raph goes in his room, I'm a total goner! Maybe I should just run away now and live in the wilderness. Be at one with nature . . . you know . . . like that Bear Gorillas guy . . . " Mikey said, placing his hands on his hips and striking some pose that Donnie assumed was supposed make him look brave and intrepid, but the fact that Mikey had struck the pose just after suggesting that he run away from home like a coward sort of contradicted the 'heroic' gesture.

"Uh . . . I think it's Bear Grylls . . . and you and I both know you couldn't survive out in the woods on your own," Donnie said, raising an eye ridge and tilting his head to the side as he spoke.

"Sure I could, dude! I'm all about the outdoors! And you _know_ how good I am at starting fires!" Mikey bragged, jabbing a thumb into his chest proudly.

Donnie certainly couldn't argue that last statement.

"True . . . but you wouldn't be able to survive without pizza or pre-prepared fast food _and_ you've been afraid of squirrels ever since the whole 'Squirrelanoids' incident. Plus, there's no way you would last for more than ten minutes without the TV," Donnie added with a hint of mockery and his expression turned almost smug.

"Who said anything about going without the TV?" Mikey asked as he hopped up on top of the table next to Donnie's desk to make himself more comfortable, nearly knocking over Donnie's cherished microscope in the process. Luckily, his older brother hadn't been looking in his direction during the close call, so he had failed to notice Mikey's clumsiness. By the time Donnie's eyes ventured back over to Mikey again, the youngest turtle had already pushed the microscope aside and pulled his legs up into a cross-legged position on the table. There he sat, looking as innocent as can be, like nothing had ever happened.

Upon seeing his younger brother sitting on top of his table with that 'innocent' ergo guilty expression plastered on his face, Donnie would have normally interrogated Mikey about why he was giving him ' _that'_ look, or, at the very least, he would have told his brother to get his lazy shell down off of his workstation. However, in this instance, Donnie ignored both the telltale angelic expression and the breach of manners. That was only because his thoughts were distracted by what Mikey had just said about the television. The genius had been puzzled by the statement and he didn't like being puzzled. He had always prided himself on having all the answers.

"And what exactly are you going to do with a TV out in the wilderness?" Donnie asked point-blank, quite curious to know the response, while dreading it at the same time.

"Uh . . . watch it," Mikey said as if the answer to that question was painfully clear and he even went so far as to give Donnie a look that somehow implied, 'Hello! You're supposed to be the smart one. Shouldn't you have figured that out on your own?'

"There are no plug-ins out in the wilderness, Mikey," Donnie stated what he thought was obvious to everyone, but apparently, it was obvious to everyone _but_ Mikey.

"So?" Mikey asked, looking at Donnie as though what he had just stated was completely irrelevant to the conversation currently taking place between them.

"The TV . . . it needs to be plugged in . . . to an outlet . . . because it runs on power . . . otherwise, it won't – and why am I even bothering to explain this to you?" Donnie groaned, frustrated with himself for letting himself get as far into the explanation as he had. He should have realized before he had even started his explanation that he was wasting his breath.

"Explain what?" Mikey asked, as if to illustrate Donnie's point.

Donnie slapped his right hand over his face and grimaced before saying, "Exactly . . . Nevermind."

"So what are we gonna do?" Mikey asked, pushing himself off of Donnie's work table so that he was ready to spring into action as soon as his super-smart brother unveiled the plan he had not doubt put together by now. Mikey knew that Donnie was a real whiz at coming up with plans and other neat stuff . . .

"Well, I could uninstall and modify the infrared camera in the Shellraiser so that we could use the thermal imaging technology to find Spike. Spike's cold-blooded, but his temperature is still high enough to emit plenty of black-body radiation for the camera to detect," Donnie suggested, already visualizing the necessary alterations and modifications in his mind.

"Interesting . . . interesting," Mikey said, trying to sound like he had followed along with what his brainy brother had just stated, but, the truth was, Donnie had lost him at 'infrared.' The youngest turtle was still trying to figure out if that was some sort of energy drink or a new way to cook a steak. Either way, he wasn't sure why Donnie would bring something like that up at a time like this . . .

It didn't take long for Donnie to recognize that, somewhere during his proposal, Mikey's brain had gone off course. Even after he had finished his recommendation, he could see that Mikey was still robotically nodding his head and there was a vacant look in his blue eyes.

 _Well, more vacant than normal . . ._

It occurred to Donnie that he should have done a better job taking his audience into account. When working with Mikey, a simpler, less 'sciency' plan was warranted.

Actually, now that Donnie was taking the time to stop and consider things more thoroughly, he realized that dismantling and altering the infrared camera in the Shellraiser was perhaps a little extreme. They were looking for a pet turtle in a small room. How hard could that be? He highly doubted this situation required something so technologically advanced.

 _Way to overthink things, Genius . . ._

"Or . . . we could just go in your room and look for Spike," Donnie said heading for the lab doors, raring to get this over with so that he could get back to what he had been working on before Mikey had interrupted him with this current dilemma.

Just as the brainy turtle got within a few feet of the heavy steel doors, Mikey grabbed him by the back of the elbow to stop him. Donnie turned to see that Mikey had gotten himself all worked up into a tizzy once again.

"But what about Raph? He's probably still sitting in the pit! He'll see us the second we go out there!" Mikey exclaimed and his already bulging eyes somehow grew even wider as he stared up at his taller big brother. He was clinging to Donnie's arm as though he was incapable of letting go.

"Yes . . . Raph will see us, but we're going to have to walk by him at some point in order to get to your bedroom. That is unless you want to knock down a wall or bore a hole in the ceiling . . . " Donnie said sarcastically, and then, he let out a small chuckle.

There was a long silence that followed Donnie's last comment and the purple-banded turtle assumed that Mikey was just taking a moment to build up the courage needed to walk past Raph, but even a genius could be wrong from time to time.

"I kind of like your idea of taking out a wall," Mikey said, and, at first, Donnie had thought that his baby brother was just joking around like he always did, but when the genius took a closer look at Mikey's face, it revealed that the goofball was dead serious.

 _Oh, for the love of science . . ._

"Mikey, we're _not_ going to knock down a wall just so that you can avoid Raph! That would be totally uncalled for, not to mention dangerous! Besides, don't you think that knocking a wall down might be a little more likely to draw Raph's attention than simply walking by him?" Donnie tried to reason with his little brother, but the reasoning part of Mikey's brain was greatly outweighed by the unreasonable part of Mikey's brain. It always had been, even when they weren't in crisis-mode.

"I'm willing to risk it," Mikey stated gallantly, as if he was on the cusp of making the single most selfless sacrifice of all time.

"Well, I'm not! I'd rather take my chances with Raph than to have to tell Master Splinter that we blew a hole through the lair just to get to your bedroom," Donnie said flatly.

"Oh man! Either way, we're turtle soup . . . " Mikey whined.

"Not necessarily. We know that Raph still hasn't found out that Spike is missing yet. If he had, he would have been yelling his lungs out by now. So there's no need to panic." Though inclined to say it, Donnie chose to leave the word 'yet' off of the end of that last sentence. He continued on without it. "All we need to do is casually walk past Raph, head towards your room, find Spike, and put him back in Raph's room. Raph'll never know what happened," Donnie said much more confidently than he had expected. Maybe Leo was rubbing off on him.

Donnie then stressed the most important part of his message, just to make sure that Mikey understood. "The key is to stay calm. Remember, Raph can smell fear."

"Got it! Stay calm. Go to my room. Don't let Raph smell me," Mikey repeated the steps aloud for good measure, counting them down on the three fingers of his right hand as he listed them off. Once Donnie nodded to indicate that his baby brother had gotten them all right, Mikey couldn't resist expressing his enthusiasm.

"Ah, yeah! 'Operation: Spike Hunt' in full effect, brah! Let's do this!" Mikey cheered slightly quieter than normal so that Raph could not hear, but he was still just as animated as ever. He repeatedly pointed both of his forefingers at Donnie to show how pumped up he was about the plan.

"You're kidding, right? Please tell me that you did not seriously just give your colossal screw-up an operation name!" Donnie barked and a scowl creased his face.

"I sure did, son! 'Operation: Spike Hunt!' I named it that 'cause we're gonna look for Spike, which means we're gonna 'hunt' for – " Mikey tried to explain, but Donnie held a palm out to stop him.

"I get it! I get it! Let's just find Spike before Raph de-shells us both," Donnie muttered, wondering why he had let his little brother drag him into this whole convoluted mess in the first place.

Though he loved his brothers dearly, it was days like these that he envied April for being an only child . . .

* * *

 _ **To be continued . . .**_

 _ **Author's Note: Please favorite/follow/review if you liked this chapter or are enjoying this story. Thank you very much for reading. CJ**_


	3. Chapter 3 - Seeing Red

_***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: Chapter 3 of 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever' is here. I would like to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, 'favorited,' and followed this story so far. I am so very grateful for the positive feedback that I have received. Please continue to favorite/follow/review this story if you are enjoying it. I really love the feedback. I hope you like this chapter. Please LMK. CJ**_

* * *

 **Chapter 3 – Seeing Red**

After sliding the doors to Donatello's lab open, the two youngest brothers walked out into the main living space of the lair, making sure to avoid the sunken area in the center of the large room, as that was where Raph was currently sitting. Donnie kept his fingers crossed that Raph would just ignore their presence altogether as he so often did when he was engrossed in something.

 _No such luck . . ._

"And where are you two heading off to?" Came Raph's gruff voice just as they were about to scale over the long sewer pipe that stretched across the straightest path to the stairs that led to the dormitory area. The pipe jutted out from the wall and down through the couch that bordered the pit of the lair.

Donnie and Mikey both froze in their tracks for a lingering moment, hoping that if they stood stock still long enough, Raph might forget that they were standing there.

"Well . . . " Raph said, sounding irritated over being forced to wait for an answer.

 _Aw, sewer apples_ , Donnie mentally groaned, looking up towards the ceiling as if to question the ethical conduct of whatever being was up there allowing all of this bad stuff to keep happening to him. He wondered what he had done to deserve _this_?

Donnie then looked over at Mikey and gave him a small, reassuring smile. Well, at least he hoped it came off as reassuring and not apprehensive, like he was feeling inside at the moment. The truth was, he wasn't feeling all that confident about Mikey's ability to keep a secret. After all, Mikey had an extensive history of blurting out the truth at the least opportune times.

Knowing that the longer they kept Raphael waiting for a response, the more disgusted he would get, the two little brothers slowly turned around to face their hotheaded brother.

"Oh! Hey – hey, Raph! Whatcha doing?" Mikey asked, acting as though he had just noticed that Raph was in the same room. All the while, Mikey was trying his best not to show fear, but as hard as he tried, it was still painfully obvious that the youngest brother was scared out of his shell. Mikey's poker face was in definite need of an overhaul. Fortunately for him – and Donnie – Raph didn't bother to look up, presumably because it would have been too much effort for him to make eye contact with his brothers. He just kept his gaze fixed straight ahead.

"The TV's on and I'm sitting in front of it. What do you think I'm doing, meathead?" Raph asked snidely, still not bothering to tear his eyes away from the television screen.

Never in all of his life had Donnie been so thankful for Raph being his rude and inconsiderate self. For once, Raph blowing them off had actually worked to their advantage.

"Probably watching TV," Mikey responded without need, completely oblivious to the fact that Raph's question was meant to be both belittling and rhetorical. In Mikey's mind, there was no such thing as a rhetorical question. That was because he didn't have any inkling what the definition of 'rhetorical' was.

Raph glanced up at Mikey just so that he could roll his eyes.

"Well, we'll let you get back to what you were doing," Donnie said, giving Mikey a quick nudge on the arm to let him know that it was time to go. For one blissful moment, Donnie thought that they were out of danger.

Then, Mikey just had to go and open his big mouth . . .

"Yeah . . . you should totally go back to watching the TV and not us. Because the TV's way more interesting than anything that we would be doing. Not that we were doing anything. Because we weren't. And even if we were – which we're not – the TV would be better. Like ten times better! If I were you, I wouldn't even get up off the couch for like another three or four more hours. Or maybe you could – " Mikey would have gone on and on – _and on –_ if not for Donnie jabbing an elbow into his side and glaring daggers at him.

When Mikey looked up, he could have sworn that his brainy brother was about to explode like a firecracker and he could almost see thunderclouds gathering over Donnie's head. It was the same berserk look that Donnie gave him every time he reminded his big brother about how his pal Leatherhead liked to grab the genius turtle by the face.

Mikey rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and let out a nervous little giggle.

Thanks to Mikey's jabbering, they had now aroused Raph's suspicion.

"What are you two up to?" Raph asked, sitting up straighter in the beanbag chair that he was sitting on while he lowered his eye ridges curiously. His intense green eyes studied his brothers like a stealthy animal would its prey. He was no expert on turtle behavior by any means. That was more of a Donnie-thing . . . But Raph knew his two little brothers well enough to recognize that they were both hiding something. If Mikey's idiotic babbling hadn't given them away, Donnie's livid reaction certainly had. Raph was familiar with that incensed look on his nerdy brother's face. He only got that look when Mikey royally screwed something up.

"Up to? Nothing! Why would we be up to something? We're just hangin' out," Donnie responded as indifferently as possible while he shifted his position so that his taller form was poised in front of Mikey, deliberately keeping the youngest brother out of Raph's line of sight. The genius turtle then glanced back over his shoulder and flashed his baby brother a foreboding look that said 'stay behind me and keep your mouth shut if you want to live.'

For the first time that day – or maybe even that month – Mikey actually caught onto one of Donnie's nonverbal gestures. Maybe that was because the youngest brother was used to being on the receiving end of such intimidating expressions. He had gotten thousands of similar threatening scowls from Raph through the years. Mikey had learned the hard way that these types of looks oftentimes resulted in painful consequences. No, he didn't think for a second that Donnie would hurt him, because it wasn't in the gentlest turtle's nature to hurt anyone. It was, however, in Raph's nature. Raph and his foul temper had instilled the belief in Mikey that he should be afraid of death glares for the simple reason that they usually resulted in whacks to the back of the head courtesy of the turtle in red. One of Raph's favorite pastimes seemed to be trying to smack the green off of his little brothers. As far as Mikey knew, Raph had never actually succeeded in smacking the green off of anyone to date, but that was definitely not for lack of trying.

 _Sometimes, it really isn't easy being green_ , Mikey thought dolefully as he slid his hand up to rub the back of his head rather than his neck. Just thinking about slaps gone by made his head throb with phantom aches.

"Just hangin' out, huh?" Raph asked and the doubt he projected in his voice was glaringly obvious. He had noticed that Donnie was effectively blocking Mikey from his view. Whether or not that was intentional, Raph could not be absolutely certain. However, if the turtle in red were to wager on it, he would bet the lair that the obstruction was premeditated. His brainy brother rarely did anything without calculated deliberation, unlike himself, who always liked to act without any forethought.

Donatello and Raphael were pretty much polar opposites in nearly every way. Whereas Donnie was passive and peaceful, Raph was aggressive and violent. Donnie was precautious and Raph was impulsive. Donnie was an organizer and Raph was a haphazard. Donnie was brilliant, logical, gentle, and good-natured and Raph . . . well, he wasn't any of those things. But Raph didn't have to be any of those things to know that Donnie was trying to conceal something from him. Raph may not have been born smart like Donnie, but if there was one thing that he knew just as well as the brainiac, it was his brothers.

Raph looked up at Donnie with narrowed eyes, clearly trying to intimidate his brainy brother into confessing something, but he was aware that Donnie wasn't as easy to crack as Mikey. With Mikey, all you had to do was look at him crossly and he would cave in. Donnie was a lot more complicated.

"Just hangin' out," Donnie repeated with an innocent smile.

Raph wasn't buying it.

"So you're not doing anything else?" The hotheaded turtle snarled and his fiery eyes constricted into nothing more than slits.

"What else would we be doing?" Donnie fired back, purposely answering Raph's question with another question. It was a strategy that he often deployed when interacting with his immediate older brother. The genius knew that if he kept asking questions in place of answers, Raph would eventually just give up because he lacked the patience required to carry a meaningful conversation.

"I don't know, but you two are acting like you're up to something," Raph grunted, pointing a stubby finger at Donnie as if to suggest that he was onto him, but Donnie knew better. He knew Raph had nothing.

"What do you mean?" Donnie threw out another question and he internalized a smirk, amused by how his genius mind worked.

"You know exactly what I mean, Brainiac! You two were both doing that thing that you do whenever you're hiding something," Raph stated, rather ambiguously, already struggling with putting words to his thoughts, just as Donnie had predicted.

"What thing?" Yet another question . . . And still, Donnie had managed not to answer a thing. He could see that this was flustering Raph to no end. It was only a matter of time now. Donnie guessed that Raph would be able to hold out for about three more seconds.

 _Three . . ._

"You _know_ the thing!"

 _Two . . ._

"The one where you – you know – "

 _One . . ._

"Aw, forget it!" Raph grunted in a huff, crossing his arms over his plastron and glaring down at his feet resentfully.

 _And the winner is . . . me! No applause necessary,_ Donnie cheered in his head, mentally congratulating himself for a job well done. He couldn't stop a gap-toothed grin from spreading across his face in light of his victory.

While Donnie may not have been able to beat Raph in a physical confrontation, when it came to a battle of the wits, Raph was seriously outmatched by his brainy brother.

"Well, we'll be in Mikey's room if you need anything," Donnie said, hurriedly shooing Mikey along, not wanting to stick around and give Raph the opportunity to recover from his crushing defeat.

The two youngest turtles vaulted over the pipe that they had been standing beside and quickly headed towards Mikey's room. They had thought that they were in the clear, but just as they were about to climb up the set of stairs that led to the arched aperture over the hall where their bedrooms were, their older brother's voice rang out.

"Actually . . . I do need something," Raph said in an ominous tone.

Donnie and Mikey's forward momentum came to a screeching halt as their every muscle went rigid with dread. They knew _that_ tone in Raph's voice. They knew _that_ tone all too well. Slowly, the two of them turned to face their older brother.

"It's getting close to lunchtime," Raph informed them, lifting his head up to stare at his two younger brothers with a sinister look in his eyes. He pressed his lips together and the outside edges of his mouth curled upward to form a thin, devious smile.

"So . . . " Donnie held out the long O sound on the word 'so' to indicate that he was waiting for Raph to elaborate on his statement. The genius turtle knew perfectly well that Raph hadn't just pointed out that it was close to lunchtime out of the kindness of his heart. There were ulterior motives afoot.

Mikey, on the other hand, had taken Raphael's comment at face value, completely oblivious to the underlying meaning that was there.

"Ahhh, Donnie. I think Raph wants to have lunch with us. That's so nice. We would love to," Mikey eagerly accepted the unspoken proposal as he clasped his hands together underneath his chin and grinned from ear slit to ear slit, suddenly filled with delusions of a four-course meal and the promise of brotherly bonding.

Raph's devious smile twisted into a bitter glower that he fixed on Mikey, who was currently beside himself with delight, still envisioning the perfect family gathering in his head. The youngest turtle was mentally adorning the kitchen table with a set of matching checkered placemats and napkins, a picnic basket, and a floral centerpiece, all of which they did not have, but that didn't dissuade Mikey's overactive imagination any.

It was Raph's crusty voice that finally snapped Mikey out of his reverie.

"No! I don't want to have lunch with you two! I want you to _make_ me lunch!" Raph clarified tersely, putting heavy emphasis on the word 'make.'

With his proverbial balloon now burst by the cruel pinprick of reality, Mikey's face fell into a deplorable frown, not unlike the kind of frown that one would see on a little kid whose ice cream cone had just melted and fallen to the ground.

In the meantime, Donnie had set his face into a deep scowl. He wasn't sure which brother he was more disgusted with right now. Mikey, for seemingly forgetting all about the Spike situation at the mere _mention_ of lunch, or Raph, for having the unmitigated gall to tell them to _make_ him lunch.

After careful consideration, Donnie decided that it was Raph that should receive the brunt of his anger. After all, Mikey couldn't help it that he had an unnaturally short attention span. The youngest turtle was easily distracted by just about anything that was shiny, contained moving parts, and/or had to do with food . . .

Donnie zeroed in a glare on Raph.

"Excuse me?" Donnie hissed and his eyes hooded over with offense.

"You heard me, Brainiac. Since Leo is gone and I'm the second oldest, that leaves _me_ in charge. That means that the both of _you_ have to do whatever I say. Now . . . why don't you two go make yourself useful and make me a sandwich?" Raph said in his most commanding voice as he gestured towards the kitchen as if they didn't know where it was, adding insult to injury. He then looked up at his little brothers with a menacing stare, just waiting for their reaction. He knew that there was no way that Donnie would just give in to his demands on the first go-round, but there was a chance that Mikey might. And if the little dweeb did, that meant Raph would get a sandwich out of it without even having to get up out of his seat. That would be a 'win' in his book.

 _It's good to be the scariest one_ . . . Raph thought as he arrogantly leaned back into his beanbag chair and locked his hands together behind his head, stretching his elbows out wide.

Continuing to glare down at Raph, Donnie folded his arms across his plastron right before he voiced his opinion on Raph's sudden sense of entitlement.

"Do you really think that being leader means that you can order us around like a couple of servants?" Donnie grumbled, not at all thrilled with Raph's interpretation of what being in charge entailed. He was half-tempted to tell Raph where he could stick that sandwich he wasn't about to make.

"Yes," Raph said without a moment's hesitation, making himself even more comfortable in his seat.

"Well, it doesn't!" Donnie howled irately as he placed his hands on his hips. Beside him, Mikey took on the same stance just before he went ahead and put his two cents in.

"Yeah!" Mikey exclaimed, puffing his chest out. Donnie and Raph stared at the youngest brother, both assuming that he would add further commentary, but apparently, he was done. That was all he had.

 _Okay, maybe that wasn't quite two cents. More like a half cent_ . . _. if that_ . . . Donnie thought to himself mordantly.

"Thank you, Mikey, for that truly riveting argument. Anyway . . . the point is, we're not going to make you a sandwich, _Raph_ ," Donnie said, putting heavy scorn on his older brother's name.

"Yeah!" Mikey chimed in again, only this time, he had a little more to say on the matter. "You think 'cause Leo's gone you can just tell us what to do, but you can't, 'cause that's not what being a leader is all about. Being a leader is about helping others to do better and putting the team first," Mikey said, and for a moment, he sounded like he might actually make a valid point, but, the moment soon passed . . .

"A true leader would make his team sandwiches, 'cause it's the right thing to do. It's like Master Splinter always says, 'Always do stuff for others so that they do stuff for you,'" Mikey said, doing his best Master Splinter impression, which was nothing short of terrible.

Closing his eyes for a moment or two, Donnie pressed one of his thumbs and forefingers into the inside corners of his eye sockets and shook his head from side to side. If Master Splinter would have been there to hear his youngest son butcher one of his favorite quotes like that while doing an awful rendition of his voice, he, too, would have been shaking his head.

While Donnie's reaction to Mikey's comments had been a combination of frustration and disbelief, Raph's reaction had been anger. Pure, uncontrollable anger over his brothers' refusal to follow his simple orders.

At first, the two youngest turtles failed to notice that they had just managed to seriously tick off their most volatile brother, which ironically, was precisely what they had been trying _not_ to do.

Raph forcefully pushed himself up to his feet and stomped in the direction of his brothers. It wasn't until the red-banded turtle was moving towards them that his little brothers finally realized that he was furious. That was when they both saw the rage blazing in their big brother's emerald eyes and they felt their hearts start to race inside of their chest.

 _Well . . . at least we don't have to worry about what Raph is going to do to us when he finds out that Spike is missing_ , _because I'm pretty sure he isn't going to let us live that long . . ._ Donnie thought sardonically.

This just wasn't his day . . .

* * *

 _ **To be continued . . .**_

 _ ***Author's Note: Please continue to review/favorite/follow this story if you like it. I would love to know if you are enjoying it. Thank you so much for reading! CJ**_


	4. Chapter 4 - Spit Happens

_***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 ** _*Author's Notes: Here is chapter 4 of 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever.' As always, thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, 'favorited,' and followed this story. I really, really appreciate it. I truly hope that you find this story humorous and that you are enjoying it. If you are, please continue to favorite/follow/review this story so that I know you like it. I would LOVE the feedback. ;) CJ_**

* * *

 **Chapter 4 – Spit Happens**

With his shoulders dropped down and his eyes constricted into nothing more than infuriated slivers that were homed in on his two little brothers, Raph looked as though he was readying to strike as he stalked across the distance that separated the three of them. That distance was getting much too small for Donnie and Mikey's liking.

Raph's aggressive advances caused Mikey to instinctively hide behind his immediate older brother, but, much to the youngest turtle's dismay, Donnie didn't quite provide the protection that he had been hoping for. The genius turtle was way too skinny to make a decent shield.

 _Maybe I should let Donnie have the last piece of pizza every once in a while_ . . . Mikey thought guiltily as he cowered behind his brainy brother's slender figure. The youngest turtle wondered if this was how Donnie felt when he was standing behind his bo-staff during a battle.

Focusing his attention back on Raph, Mikey watched with trepidation as the hothead's rapid approach came to a sudden stop just a few inches shy of the bench-like couch that encircled the pit of the lair. The red-masked turtle's chest was heaving in and out and something told Mikey that it wasn't because Raph was overexerted from the short trek across the pit that he had just made.

Raph looked like he was going to blow a fuse . . . maybe several of them.

As their older brother stood there, huffing and puffing with anger, Donnie and Mikey both took a few clumsy steps backwards, opening up the space between themselves and the ledge surrounding the sunken area that Raph was presently standing in. The two younger brothers just wanted to make sure that they were out of Raph's range of attack, for obvious safety reasons.

Then, as though some sort of a switch had been flipped off or on inside of him, Raph's anger suddenly melted away. Just like that, his trademark scowl softened into a much more apathetic expression and his rigid muscles released the tension that they had been building up. He almost looked . . . _relaxed_? This immediately made the genius turtle stiffen with dread.

"So, let me get this straight . . . You're saying that you want _me_ to make _you_ a sandwich?" Raph asked, first pointing at himself, and then, at his brothers. His voice was eerily calm as he posed the question, but there was still a storm raging inside of him that could not be seen.

 _Not yet, anyway . . ._

"That would be super nice of you, bro," Mikey said as he came out from his hiding place behind Donnie's carapace. The youngest and most naïve of the brothers had foolishly thought that Raph was actually considering making them lunch.

Donnie, however, wasn't as easily duped as his baby brother. The brainiac knew better than to trust Raph's abrupt change of mood. He realized that the situation was about to get ugly, real fast. He remained in a defensive stance, preparing for the worst.

"Oh, I got your sandwiches for ya! Right here," Raph growled, shaking his tight fists at both of his younger brothers. "There's one for each of you! So . . . do you two want a knuckle sandwich . . . or maybe you want me to make you mincemeat?"

As soon as Raph was finished presenting their stomach-turning menu options, he climbed up and over the couch and instantly closed the gap between the three of them to mere inches. He then pounded a fist into his open palm and proceeded to crack his knuckles and neck in an extremely threatening manner.

The diagnostic part of Donnie was thinking that his red-banded brother's penchant for habitually cracking his joints would someday come back to bite him in the shell when the hothead wound up with early-onset arthritis, but the practical part of Donnie was telling him that he should probably be more concerned about his own future medical conditions than Raph's right about now. His older brother looked about ready to go ballistic on him . . .

 _Over a sandwich? Really?_

Donnie and Mikey both recoiled in terror as a once again very irate Raphael bore his teeth at them and leaned in far too close for comfort.

Mikey could only whimper as Raph drew even nearer.

Finally, Donnie did the only sensible thing that he could think of. He conceded to a fate far better than death.

"Okay, okay . . . we'll make you a sandwich," Donnie said submissively, lowering his head in both humiliation and fear. He really hated that he had just yielded to Raph's absurd command, but, at the same time, he valued his bone structure too much to let his older brother use him as a punching bag. Being the smartest and most diplomatic one of the brothers, the purple-clad turtle figured that it was wiser to 'save face.'

"That's more like it," Raph uttered with a pompous smirk and he popped his knuckles one more time, just for added effect.

Donnie and Mikey flinched at the unpleasant sound before they scurried across the main living space of the lair, heading straight towards the kitchen. They left Raph to return to whatever it was that he had been watching on TV before they had so rudely interrupted him with their presence.

Once the two youngest turtles passed through the curtains that were draped across the kitchen entrance, they breathed out a heavy sigh of relief, but the feeling of relief was short-lived when they remembered why they had been trying to slip past their hotheaded brother in the first place.

While the interaction with the red-clad turtle could have gone much, much worse, it hadn't exactly gone well. Sure, they had managed to avoid getting pounded on, but they had concurrently failed to make it to Mikey's bedroom. This meant that Spike was still missing, which, in turn, meant that, at any point, if Raph were to decide to go to his room, he would discover that Mikey had lost his precious pet turtle.

If Raph was willing to pummel them into the ground over something as trivial as making him a sandwich, what was he going to do if he found out that Mikey had lost his 'best friend?'

"What are we gonna do now?" Mikey squeaked out, grasping the top of his head in his hands and retracting his neck down inside of his shell as if he was trying to make himself shrink.

Donnie grimaced. When he had woken up this morning, this was so not how he had visualized his day would go. He had planned on spending the daylight hours working on creating a retro mutagen to turn April's father and Timothy human again. He certainly hadn't pictured himself trapped in the kitchen with Mikey, being forced to make a sandwich against their will.

 _Argh! I'm never going to be able to find an antidote for mutagen at this rate . . ._

The sooner Donnie figured out a way to get them out of this mess, the sooner he could get back to his lab to work on reverse engineering mutagen.

"Okay, here's the new plan. I'm going to sneak into your room and search for Spike while you stay here and make Raph his stupid sandwich," Donnie said, keeping his voice on the edge of a whisper so that what he had said wouldn't carry beyond the confines of the kitchen.

"Aw! Why do I have to be the one who has to make the sandwich?" Mikey bellyached, not making any attempt to keep his voice low like Donnie had.

Even though the genius knew that Mikey being loud and whiny most likely evoked far less suspicion than him being quiet and stealthy, the volume still made Donnie cringe. It was a 'fingernails on a chalkboard' kind of reaction.

Donnie shushed his most vocal brother before going on to explain his logic. Once again, he used a much more hushed tone than Mikey had employed. Unlike his baby brother, the genius turtle didn't feel a need to go broadcasting their plans for Raph and anyone passing by overhead to hear.

"Because this is all your fault in the first place . . . " The genius was quick to remind Mikey, just in case his little brother had somehow forgotten who was to blame for all of this.

 _Not exactly mature, but apropos . . ._ Donnie thought to himself before continuing.

" – _And_ because you're the one least likely to spit in the sandwich just out of spite," Donnie said in a clearly bitter tone as he cast a glare over his shoulder in the direction of where Raph was presumably still sitting. The genius knew full well that his older brother couldn't see his disgruntled expression, but it still felt slightly rewarding.

"Dude, that's totally gross! Funny . . . but _gross_!" Mikey made a scrunched up yucky face for a moment before continuing on with what he had to say in a much more frazzled fashion than before. "So what the heck kind of a sandwich am I even supposed to make?" The youngest turtle asked, making it sound as if what kind of sandwich to make was the worst of their problems right now.

Sometimes, Mikey had his priorities a little mixed up . . .

"You're the inventor of the P-Shake and the jellybean, anchovy, and jalapeno pizza. I'm sure you can come up with something. Just remember, once I sneak into your room, I need you to keep Raph distracted for as long as possible," Donnie said, looking Mikey straight in the eyes as he spoke so that he could better convey the utmost importance of what he was telling his little brother.

"But how are you gonna get past Raph?" Mikey asked, looking up at his genius brother with his big, quivering blue eyes that were wider than normal and glossed over with anxiety. The youngest brother looked like a scared little kid in search of someone to protect him from the big, bad monster underneath the bed (aka Raph). Not that Raph would fit underneath any of their beds. Not with that ginormous shell on his back . . .

The beseeching look etched on Mikey's freckled face was tugging at Donnie's emotional heartstrings and the older turtle automatically tried to console his distraught little brother. The way the purple-masked turtle saw it, it was his job to protect Mikey. That and there was no sense in both of them getting stressed out beyond their limits. After all, Donnie was perfectly capable of doing more than enough worrying for the two of them. Sweating the small stuff was kind of his thing.

"Don't worry, Mikey. Everything's going to be fine. If Raph is still watching TV, his back will be turned to me this time, so I should have no problem sneaking through the Dojo and cutting across to the bedrooms without him seeing me," Donnie said, coming off a lot more self-assured sounding than what he was actually feeling on the inside. The big brother part of him was trying to make Mikey feel better, while, at the same time, the neurotic part of him was doing its best to make him think about all of the awful things that Raph was capable of doing to him if he were to catch him in the act of sneaking into Mikey's room. Donnie really didn't want to get his shell broken. He was quite attached to it – both literally and figuratively.

Mikey's voice snapped Donnie out of his troublesome thoughts.

"But what if he comes in here looking for you? What am I supposed to tell him then?" Mikey asked, apparently not quite convinced by Donnie's comforting words. Evidently, the brainy turtle hadn't come across quite as self-assuring as he had thought.

 _Where's Leo when you need him? He's so much better at these little motivational_ _speeches_ , Donnie thought, wishing that he had the ability to fire off inspirational quotes the way that his oldest brother had down pat. Granted, a lot of Leo's quotes were hopelessly cheesy – and some of them could be downright embarrassing – but the turtle in blue was able to exude a whole lot more confidence than Donnie ever could pull off, even when the message being transmitted was as lame as could be.

Still, that didn't mean that Donatello wasn't going to at least try to calm Mikey down. His little brother needed someone to fill the open role of the fearless leader in Leo's stead, and currently, there was no one else in the lair capable of doing it. Donnie had to give it another shot . . . for Mikey's sake.

"Raph isn't going to budge from the spot that he's in, Mikey. Not as long as he thinks we're in here making him lunch. That's the whole point of him telling us to make him a sandwich . . . so that he doesn't have to bother getting up to do it himself," Donnie assured Mikey as he placed a hand on one of his little brother's shoulders and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Mikey nodded and gave his big brother a small, childlike smile which Donnie took to mean that his little brother had been satisfied with his response.

Reciprocating the smile, Donnie released Mikey's shoulder and turned to leave, but the youngest turtle saying his name held him back.

"Donnie?" Mikey said, just a hair above a whisper, finally finding the volume adjustment for his voice.

"Yeah, Mikey?" Donnie said, spinning around to face his brother again.

Mikey had a hesitant look in his eyes, like he was nervous to say what he wanted to.

"It's okay, Mikey. Raph won't see me," Donnie assured Mikey one more time, mistakenly assuming that his younger sibling's tentativeness was a display of brotherly concern.

It wasn't . . .

The genius should have known better.

"It's not that. I was just wondering . . . When you made me that sandwich last week . . . did you – you know?" Mikey asked, anxiously tapping his steepled fingers together in front of his chest.

"No, Mikey. I did not spit in your sandwich," Donnie responded in a monotone voice, and then, he let a small sigh slip out.

Upon hearing Donnie's response, Mikey's eyes brightened to their usual luster and radiance as his entire face lifted with genuine happiness. He was acting as though a tremendous weight had just been lifted off of his chest.

Mikey had always been a bit of a drama turtle . . .

"Mikey, I've seen you chew on wads of second-hand gum and eat pizza straight out of a garbage dumpster. Do you really think that me spitting in your sandwich would be any more disturbing than either of those things?" Donnie asked, arching an eye ridge cynically.

"Yes! Spit is gross, Donnie," Mikey stated quite assertively, crossing his arms around himself and hardening his features so that they were uncharacteristically stern.

"And you think that pre-chewed gum doesn't contain spit?" Donnie asked, not following his little brother's logic at all. Of course, this was nothing out of the ordinary. Trying to make sense of Mikey's thought process was like trying to pound a nail in with a glass hammer.

"That's different!" Mikey argued . . . poorly.

"How is that different? It's been in someone's mouth!" Donnie's voice grew shriller by the word.

"But it's all dried up, dude," Mikey contended, actually convinced that he had just made a valid point.

Donatello opened his mouth, as if he was about to dispute Mikey's statement using his vast knowledge of scientific studies and facts, but the brainy turtle changed his mind at the last second. He ultimately decided that it just wasn't worth the effort. Besides, he had more important things to do right now than to stand there and talk about saliva with his younger brother. Every moment that they spent in the kitchen discussing spit was another moment that Raph could get up and go to his room.

 _Tick-tock, Donnie . . ._

"Just focus on making the sandwich, Mikey," Donnie instructed, pointing at the fridge to redirect Mikey's attention back to the task at hand. Once his little brother signaled his understanding by bobbing his head up and down, Donnie left the kitchen and silently made his way to the Dojo's main entrance.

It was time to set his plan into motion.

First things first, Donnie would have to get past Raph undetected, which he hoped would go as smoothly as it had played out in his head when he was putting this mediocre plan together. In order to get past Raph and into Mikey's bedroom, the genius turtle would have to stealthily creep through the furthermost folding partition in the Dojo that led to the main living space of the lair. From there, he would have to make his way across the 'moat,' which was just off of the stairway to their bedrooms. If he was able to do that without detection, it would be smooth sailing from there, because, once he was inside of Mikey's room, all he would have to do is find Spike and put him back in Raph's room.

 _It should be as easy as replacing the idle-air-control valve on the Shellraiser while solving a quadratic equation . . ._

'Should' was the key word in that last thought.

While the genius's plan seemed uncomplicated and foolproof, it contained one huge potential hiccup . . .

 _The Mikey factor._

As long as Mikey was an active participant of any plan, nothing was failsafe. And if Mikey blew their cover and Raph found out what they were doing behind his shell, the two youngest turtles weren't going to live to see the ripe old age of sixteen.

 _Relax, Donnie . . . Mikey can handle this. All he has to do is make a simple sandwich in order to keep Raph occupied. Even Mikey couldn't screw that up, right?_

The genius shuddered when he realized the answer to his own question.

 _We're doomed_ , Donnie thought morbidly.

* * *

 _ **To be continued . . .**_

 _ ***Author's Note: Please continue to review/favorite/follow this story if you are enjoying it. I would really love to know if you like it. Thank you so much for reading! CJ**_


	5. Chapter 5 - Pepperoni and Briefs

_***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: Chapter 5 of 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever' is here and Mikey is finally going to fulfill Raph's order. Once again, I would like to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, 'favorited,' and followed this story. I am really hoping that you are finding this story humorous. If you are, please continue to favorite/follow/review it so that I know you like it. Any feedback on this story would be much-appreciated as I am still super nervous about posting a comedy. ;) CJ**_

* * *

 **Chapter 5 – Pepperoni and Briefs**

Somewhere along the line, Mikey had sort of become the unspoken 'chef' of the Hamato family. He assumed it had something to do with his many new and inventive ways to prepare their former nutritional staples, worms and algae. He had been the creator of such delectable dishes as worms and algae cake, worms and algae mignon, worms and algae hotdish supremo, and, his personal favorite, worms and algae à la mode. Of course, if his brothers ever found out what he had substituted for the ice cream in order to make his 'à la mode' in that last concoction, they would have never eaten anything he made ever again.

 _Oh, the things you can find in the sewers . . ._

Even at a young age, Mikey had shown a strong passion for food, always demonstrating far more initiative and enthusiasm in the kitchen than his brothers ever had. Then, when they discovered that there were culinary delights outside of wriggly invertebrate animals and slimy plantlike organisms, Mikey truly realized just how much he loved to eat and it made preparing food that much more pleasing. The bonus of being the designated cook of the clan meant that he got to sample all of the ingredients that he was cooking and/or experimenting with. There was nothing more gratifying than making two pizzas and keeping one all to himself without his family even knowing.

Unfortunately, as creative as Mikey normally was in the kitchen, right now, all of the pressure had him drawing a complete culinary blank. So far, all he had accomplished on Raph's sandwich was to scrape the mold off of the two least moldy pieces of stale bread that he had taken from a partial loaf that was well past its sell-by date.

 _Come on, bro. Pull yourself together. D is counting on you. You got this! Booyakasandwich!_ Mikey mentally encouraged himself as he walked over to the avocado-colored refrigerator and yanked the rusty bottom door open to reveal the chilled contents stored inside. He visually scanned the miscellaneous items in the fridge, searching for anything that might spark his innovative side. He then began pulling out random fixings, setting them on top of the concrete island in the center of the kitchen. Once nearly every item in the fridge had been removed, Mikey grabbed a few additional items off of the countertops, including a shaker of salt, a can of Anthony Tomato Soup, and a box of Fiber Puffs. He added these items to his collection of supplies strewn across the kitchen island. He stood there and studied his options before him, wrinkling his face up in deep concentration as he waited for inspiration to strike.

While he waited, his thoughts momentarily turned to his genius brother's plan. With each moment that passed by without any noise from Raph, Mikey started to feel slightly less stressed out about Donnie's latest masterplan. That was because the longer the silence carried on, the more likely that Donnie had succeeded in sneaking past Raph. The youngest turtle was pretty sure that more than enough time had passed by for his brainy brother to have made his way to his bedroom by now. Heck, Donnie may have already found Spike at this point. Then, all Mikey would have to do was make a sandwich and the whole ordeal would be over with.

With that thought in mind, Mikey once again focused his attention on his very important mission.

Not even realizing he was doing so, the youngest turtle started to hum some nameless tune as he went to work on his latest edible invention.

Placing one piece of dried out bread on a plate so that the side that he had done the most damage to when he had removed the mold was facing up, Mikey started to assemble a sandwich using a handful of components from the rather odd assortment of ingredients that he had gathered. He piled the ingredients on extra high, knowing that Raph had a big appetite. When Mikey felt that he had added a sufficient amount of fixings, he put the finishing touches on the sandwich, including a slice of pepperoni and a splash of Devil's Vomit Hot Sauce for added flavor. He then lovingly topped his masterpiece with the other slice of bread and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

 _Now that's a sandwich fit for a king . . . or at least a turtle,_ Mikey thought to himself, half-tempted to eat his work of art and start the process all over again, but he wasn't sure if he could find two more salvageable pieces of bread.

Then, almost as if on cue, Mikey heard his second oldest brother's snippy voice sound out from the pit. "Where's that sandwich I asked for?"

A tidal wave of panic washed over Mikey and his heart thudded inside of his chest at an alarming rate. He was not sure if he was ready to face his hotheaded brother without Donnie present to keep him from saying something that he shouldn't. Mikey had never been all that good at keeping his mouth shut. Whenever he and his brothers were trying to hide something from their father, it was Mikey who was always the first to blow their cover.

His long history of letting the cat out of the bag was freaking him out, big time. There was so much pressure riding on this, he felt as though he might burst at the seams. What if Raph figured out that he was hiding something from him? What if Raph asked him a bunch of questions and got him to spill the beans? What if Raph didn't like the sandwich that he had prepared? What if he had left the fridge door wide open? What if –

 _Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Dude, you need to chill out! It's all good, bruh. You just have to keep Raph entertained until D is done doing his thang,_ Mikey mentally reminded himself. He then sucked in a deep, calming breath, attempting to 'harness his chi.' He wasn't sure exactly what that phrase actually meant, but Leo and Master Splinter said it a lot when they were trying to meditate so he assumed it had something to do with relaxing and being quiet. Mikey had always taken it as their polite and subtle way of telling him to shut up. At least it was a lot nicer way of going about it than Raph's way of doing it.

 _Speaking of Raph . . ._

"Are you gonna answer me, or am I gonna have to come in there?" Came Raph's voice again, showing off his usual lack of patience. Mikey noticed that Raph's voice had significantly increased in volume from only moments before. This did not bode well for the orange-masked ninja.

Gnawing on his bottom lip, Mikey stared down at the sandwich that he had just made for his cranky big brother and he decided that it was now or never. If he kept Raph waiting any longer, his most temperamental brother would wax his shell for sure.

"Coming!" Mikey called out as he scooped up the dinner plate in his somewhat shaky hands and headed for the pit of the lair. Once beside Raph, Mikey handed off the plate and sat down on the couch next to the beanbag chair that his brother was submersed in.

"'Bout time," Raph grunted, and then, tacked on a gravelly-sounding "thanks." Raph stared down at the lightly chipped plate in his left hand, briefly examining Mikey's presentation before picking up his meal in his other hand and moving it towards his mouth.

The youngest brother watched with unconcealed anticipation as his older brother bit into the sandwich that he had just constructed.

As soon as Raph started to chew, his eyes enlarged with distress when he realized that there was something very, _very_ wrong with the taste that had just invaded his mouth. He had no idea what he had just sunk his teeth into and that thought scared him out of his shell. Rather than spitting out the putrid contents inside of his mouth in what would have been a noticeable display of weakness, Raph stubbornly swallowed the mouthful down. He nearly wretched as whatever it was that his baby brother had put in that "sandwich" slowly made its way down his throat. Once the small bite he had taken reached its destination, Raph's stomach juices instantly began to fester in rejection of his offering.

"What the heck kind of sandwich is this?" Raph asked, crinkling up his face and looking at the sandwich as if it was made of pure evil.

"Banana, pickles, cottage cheese, bologna, and spicy gummy worms," Mikey stated with pride, as if that flavor combination was something to brag about.

Raph did his best not to gag when Mikey listed off the ingredients. He couldn't believe that stuff was now inside of him. It felt almost as awful as when he had had that mutant squirrel crawling around in his gut.

"Is that . . . Is that a pepperoni?" Raph asked, staring down at the sandwich in horror.

"You know it! Pepperonis make everything better!" Mikey proclaimed, clearly pleased with himself for having thought of the zesty addition.

"Not everything," Raph muttered under his breath, low enough so that Mikey could not hear it.

"So . . . do you like it?" Mikey asked, revealing that he had no ability whatsoever to accurately read facial expressions. If he did have any ability at all, he would have known the answer to that question prior to asking it just based off of Raph's mortified reaction.

Not seeing a need to hurt his sensitive youngest brother's feelings when he had just been following orders, Raph attempted to be nice. Well, nice for Raph . . .

"It's very . . . flavorful. But I think I'll save the rest for later. I forgot that I had a _really_ big breakfast . . . " Raph said, setting the plate down beside him. He made a quick mental note to properly dispose of the leftovers sometime during the day. He wasn't sure if he should burn what remained of the sandwich or package it up and ship it to Shredder care of Master Splinter.

"So where's Donnie?" Raph asked, looking around for his genius brother.

"What? Who?" Mikey just about choked on the words he had spoken much the same way that Raph had nearly choked on his sandwich.

"Donnie . . . That tall, scrawny, olive-green mutant who hangs out in the lab most of the day inventing stuff and spouting off words and facts than none of us understand half the time," Raph said mockingly, amused by his description of his brainy little brother.

"Oh . . . Donnie. I thought you said something else," Mikey replied, acting as though he had heard Raph wrong, when, in all actuality, he had heard his big brother loud and clear. He just didn't know how to answer the question so he was playing dumb to buy himself some time to come up with a believable response.

"Well . . . " Raph rasped, dragging out the word 'well' several seconds longer than one normally would.

"Well, what?" Mikey asked with a perplexed expression as he wracked his brain for an answer to what he knew Raph was about to ask him.

"Well, where is he?" The red-clad turtle inquired again about his genius brother's whereabouts, growing impatient with Mikey's sudden inability to answer even the simplest of questions.

Mikey couldn't very well tell Raph the truth, so he needed to make something up and hope for the best.

 _Come on, Mikey! Think, think, think . . ._

"He's . . . uh . . . in the . . . kitchen . . . cleaning . . . 'cause I totally made a mess of things when I was making you your sandwich . . . You know how messy I can be. Well, D was like, dude, we can't just leave all this food and stuff laying around like this, and I was like, no, that wouldn't be cool. So he told me to bring you the sandwich while he put stuff away . . . 'cause that's the way Donnie rolls . . . " Mikey lied, but not nearly as confident as he would have liked. Once he was done perjuring himself, he stared down at Raph, holding his breath as he anxiously waited for his explosive brother's reaction.

 _Please don't go in the kitchen to check . . . Please don't go in the kitchen to check . . . Please don't go in the kitchen to check . . ._

"Some genius . . . I would have made you clean up your own mess," Raph snorted and sunk further into his seat, turning his attention back to the TV that he had been staring at before his baby brother had come out to deliver that repulsive sandwich.

Mikey released a soft sigh of relief and allowed himself to breathe normally again, but he was still stressing out. He was torn between whether he should get up and go help Donnie in his search efforts, or, stay there in the pit with Raph. He remembered that his brainy brother had told him that he needed to keep Raph distracted as long as possible, so he decided that it would be in his own best interest to stay with Raph, even if he was terrified of him. Mikey figured that he was already in enough trouble as it was. He didn't want to go ticking Donnie off, too.

Mikey just hoped that Donnie found Spike soon, because he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep Raph occupied. Eventually, Raph would get up to go to his room. Then, what the heck was Mikey supposed to do? He wasn't very good at this impromptu stuff.

 _Hurry up, Donnie! You know I can't be trusted with secrets,_ Mikey thought to himself as he stared off in the direction of his bedroom. Yes, he trusted his genius brother with all of his heart and soul, but Mikey still couldn't help but to feel nervous about this whole plan.

Especially since it was his shell on the line . . .

* * *

To say that Mikey's room was a pigsty would be putting it mildly, not to mention it would be insulting to pigs as well as pig farmers everywhere.

There wasn't even a clear path to get to the opposite side of the room.

Donnie was presently on his hands and knees, searching underneath the miscellaneous items scattered all over the floor of his youngest brother's disorganized bedroom. Greasy Antonio's pizza boxes were randomly stacked throughout the room. Some piled four to five boxes high. Some of the boxes were empty and some contained pizza slices that had been sitting around for who knows how long. Just a couple of moments ago, Donnie had made the mistake of opening up one of the said boxes and what he had seen inside would haunt him for the rest of his life. He couldn't even remember the last time that they had ordered a peanut butter, mushroom, and anchovy pizza, but he did know that he would never be able to eat that particular kind of pizza ever again. He was pretty sure that he had seen something actually moving inside of that box, but he had closed it before he could substantiate his suspicions.

Donnie shuddered, still disturbed by the sickening smell and by the revolting sight of that furry-looking green cheese he had just seen. The worst part about the whole thing was knowing that if his baby brother would have been there with him, he probably wouldn't have thought twice about grabbing a slice of that rancid pizza and eating it . . .

Again, Donnie shuddered and even gagged this time.

The genius turtle then went back to searching his little brother's room.

The rest of the concrete floor was littered with mostly-eaten bags of microwave popcorn, plastic cups, VCR tapes, Mikey's skateboard, and at least a dozen Chinese takeout containers. Donnie nervously looked underneath and inside of each of these items, scared of what he might find, but there was nothing too shocking. Of course, after seeing that rotten pizza, it would take a whole lot to shock him at this point.

Donnie was quickly running out of objects in the room to search under. Other than the bed, there was only one thing left on the floor that Donnie hadn't looked under and he wasn't about to look underneath _that_. There was no way on earth that Donnie was going to look under – or go anywhere near – Mikey's disgusting pair of tighty whities.

The genius turtle had never understood why his little brother kept a pair of men's briefs in his room.

 _Come to think of it, why does Mikey do half of the stuff that he does_?

It occurred to Donnie that he was probably much, much better off not knowing why his baby brother did the things that he did.

Glancing down at his brother's strange 'keepsake,' Donnie just hoped on Darwin's beard that those were pizza stains all over that pair of underwear and not something else . . .

Yet another shudder followed his latest thought.

The good news was that the underwear were lying flat on the floor, so he could see from a safe distance that there was no way that Spike could be hiding underneath them.

Donnie thanked his lucky stars for that and continued on with his search.

Crawling closer to Mikey's wooden bed frame, Donnie knelt down on the area rug underneath the bed and pulled out his T-phone. Switching on the flashlight app that he had installed on his phone, Donnie lowered himself down to the floor and examined the space underneath Mikey's bed.

Nothing.

Pushing himself up to his feet, Donnie visually scanned over the entire room once again. He had already searched all four corners of the bedroom. He had searched under and behind the sewer pipes. He had inspected the mismatched pieces of furniture throughout the room, even going so far as to pull all of the furniture away from the walls as well as lifting the items up so that he could check underneath. He had pulled back all of Mikey's bedding to make sure that Spike hadn't crawled underneath the covers. He had examined around all of the youngest turtle's various electronic devices. He had gone through all of his baby brother's many toys and shelves. He had even inspected behind Mikey's life-sized Chris Bradford cardboard cutout and his wall-mounted Cipes surfboard. He had explored every little nook and cranny that he could find, but his search had revealed nothing.

And now, Donnie had run out of real estate.

Spike may have been in Mikey's room at one point, but Donnie had now come to the indisputable conclusion that Raph's treasured pet turtle was no longer in the youngest turtle's bedroom.

A feeling of unspeakable dread settled in the pit of Donatello's stomach as he gazed around his younger brother's room once again.

Still nothing . . .

 _This is bad . . . This is really, really bad . . ._

If Spike wasn't in Mikey's bedroom like they had thought, then that meant that they now officially had no idea where the unmutated pet turtle could have crept off to.

 _Okay, there's no need to panic. It's not like Spike moves at breakneck speed or anything. He couldn't have gotten too far,_ Donnie tried to convince himself, but he failed miserably in trying to make himself feel better. The fact of the matter remained, Spike was gone and the pet turtle was so small, he could be lost anywhere in the lair by now.

Or worse . . .

Spike could have crawled outside of the lair into the tunnels of the huge New York City underground sewer system.

That thought made Donnie's heart start to gallop.

The odds of he and Mikey surviving this ordeal just decreased considerably.

If Spike had left the lair, they were both turtle soup . . .

* * *

 ** _To be continued . . ._**

 ** _*Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading. Please review/favorite/follow this story if you like this story. I would very much appreciate it and would love the feedback. Thanks, again! ;) CJ_**


	6. Chapter 6 - The Truth is Out There

_***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: Here's chapter 6 of 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever' and Mikey is in some serious trouble.**_

 _ **A huge thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read, review, favorite, and follow this story. Your positive feedback really means a lot to me. More than I can convey in words . . .**_

 _ **If you are enjoying this story, please let me know. I would love the feedback. Thank you so much for reading. ;) CJ**_

* * *

 **Chapter 6 – The Truth is Out There**

As Donnie stepped foot onto the sunken area in the heart of the lair, his eyes continued to covertly scan around the room in visual pursuit of the missing pet box turtle, but his search turned up empty once again. Feeling somehow even more stressed out than just a second ago – if that was at all possible at this point – the genius turtle shifted his eyes onto his brothers in red and orange only to discover that the two of them were hypnotized by whatever was flashing across the TV screen. In fact, they were so mesmerized by what they were watching, they had not even noticed his approach.

 _Typical_ . . .

The television set had that effect on all three of his brothers. Even his highly-principled oldest brother turned into a mindless zombie whenever his favorite show, 'Space Heroes,' was on. It didn't matter if he had seen the episode a dozen times or more. The show would still keep him glued to the screen until the credits rolled.

Donnie imperceptibly stood to the right of his brothers and glared down at Mikey, who was currently sprawled out in an unnatural position, with his legs bent over the top of the couch, his head sunken into a throw pillow, and his left arm draped down so that his knuckles were touching the floor. He had made himself far more comfortable than Donnie felt was appropriate given the circumstances. While the turtle in purple had been off frantically searching his youngest brother's cluttered and alarmingly unhygienic room for Spike, Mikey, the very turtle who had lost Spike in the first place, had been vegging out on the couch watching TV with Raph.

"Mikey . . . can I speak with you in the lab for a minute?" Donnie asked in an almost robotic manner, trying to keep any trace of annoyance out of his voice as he made his request. He didn't want to pull Raph's attention away from the show that he was so conveniently absorbed in.

Mikey kept his blue eyes locked on the television screen as he lazily asked, "Can it wait until the next commercial break, bro?"

All of the muscles in Donnie's body tensed at once as he fought with every fiber of his being not to scream at his youngest brother. This time, as Donnie spoke, he was unable to disguise the annoyance in his voice.

"No. It. Can't!" Donnie replied pointedly and the volume of his voice grew with each word. Even zoned out Mikey hadn't failed to miss the irritation in his brainy brother's tone.

Raph had detected it as well, but he was so caught up in the program that he was watching, he couldn't bring himself to care. Besides, Donnie got irritated with Mikey all the time. It wasn't like the genius getting all huffy about something Mikey had done was out of the ordinary. The dimmest witted turtle had that effect on everyone. Rubbing people the wrong way was sort of Mikey's specialty.

 _It's either that, or breaking things is . . . Saying stupid stuff can't be too far behind,_ Raph thought with a devilish smirk.

The youngest turtle groggily lifted his head up off of the pillow that he had been submerged in for who knows how long now and laid eyes on his immediate older brother who was presently standing just a few feet away from him, looking all hot and bothered about something. Since the TV had temporarily rendered Mikey braindead, it took him a couple of extra seconds to figure out why Donnie looked so ticked off, not to mention a little greener than normal.

Then, reality struck Mikey like an enemy's fist, fast and hard.

 _Oh no . . ._

In an instant, Mikey was at his feet, peering up at Donnie with his big, panic-filled blue eyes, asking his genius brother what was going on, not with words, but with a simple quizzical expression. That was because all of the words that Mikey could think of were gathering in a pile on the tip of his tongue, unable to make the transformation into actual audible sounds. The youngest turtle could only stand there with his mouth agape while he waited for his voice to start working again.

"Lab! Now!" Donnie ordered, pointing a forefinger towards the laboratory with one hand and clenching a fist at his side with the other hand. He then stormed off in the direction that he had just pointed in and each stride that he took was noticeably heavier than the last.

The youngest terrapin shuffled behind his brainy brother with far less anger in his step. Stomping had always been more of a Raph or Donnie thing than a Mikey thing. Mikey was more of a lollygagger himself. Sometimes, he even liked to prance, partly because it was fun to skip about, but mostly because it annoyed the heck out of Raph.

Once inside of his genius brother's laboratory, Mikey slid the heavy doors shut and locked them up tight. He got an unsettling sense of déjà vu as he did so, thinking back to earlier in the day when he had done the very same thing.

Mikey's tummy bubbled and fizzed like a great big carbonated drink as he watched his big brother pace around the lab. The youngest turtle could tell by his brother's rather berserk expression that it would probably be a wise move to keep his mouth shut until Donnie settled down a bit. Even Mikey knew better than to risk saying something foolish when Donnie was making _that_ face. There were a lot of sharp, pointy objects and highly unstable chemicals in the lab that could very easily find their way into his currently unhinged brother's hands. Mikey really didn't want to become an unwilling test subject for whatever that goop was in the container on Donnie's desk. Hence the reason Mikey thought it best that he not to do anything that might make Donnie any angrier than he already was.

 _If you tick off a mad scientist, would that make him a mad, mad scientist or a madder scientist?_ Mikey contemplated, confusing himself with his own thought. He stood there scratching his head while he watched Donnie continue to pace. Truthfully, his older brother's circling was starting to make him feel kind of dizzy.

After about six laps around the lab, Donnie finally calmed down enough to speak. He stopped his circular motion and turned to face his younger brother. The disgust that he had been exhibiting on the way into the lab and during his laps was gone. He now looked as though he was totally frazzled. His right eyelid was twitching and his neck was corded with tension.

"Spike wasn't in your room, Mikey," Donnie informed his youngest brother in a reasonably composed manner while he clenched and unclenched his sweaty hands.

"What do you mean he wasn't in my room?" Mikey whined, hoping on his entire comic book collection and all of his 'Super Robo Mecha Force Five Team 5' VCR tapes that he had heard his ear slits wrong.

Donnie bit back a growl of frustration. He was not sure how much more self-explanatory the words 'Spike wasn't in your room, Mikey,' could get, but he translated it for his baby brother, nevertheless. Sometimes, Donnie wondered if the only way that Mikey could truly understand things is if they were presented in pop-up book format . . .

"I searched your entire bedroom, Mikey. You. Lost. Spike." Donnie stated, attempting to be as concise as possible so that there was absolutely no room for misinterpretation.

The key thing that Donnie had forgotten was that, when dealing with Mikey, there was _always_ room for misinterpretation.

"Dude, I told you that like an hour ago. Come on, Donnie. Tell me something we don't already know," Mikey muttered and there was an implied 'duh' in his tone that did not sit well with the brainy brother.

This time, Donnie allowed himself to growl before responding.

"Mikey! This is serious! Spike is gone! And I mean gone, gone!" Donnie squawked in his falsetto voice, flailing his arms in the air to personify his aggravation.

"Well, maybe you missed a spot . . . Did you look behind my Rad Brad cutout?"

"I didn't miss a spot, Mikey! I checked everywhere. There was no sign of Spike. He got out of your room. Which leads me to my next question. How could Spike have gotten out of your room when you told me that you had kept the door closed?" Donnie howled, trying to keep his voice low enough so that Raph wouldn't hear, but loud enough so that Mikey didn't underestimate his exasperation.

"Actually . . . I never said that, bro. You did," Mikey corrected Donnie, which felt kind of good. It wasn't very often that Mikey got a chance to one-up his smartest brother.

Again, Mikey's comments did not sit well with the genius turtle. If there was one turtle that Donnie didn't want to be outsmarted by, it was his baby brother.

"When I asked you if you had kept the door to your room closed, you answered 'Like a turtle do!'" Donnie quoted and his eyelid started twitching yet again. If that squirrely eye wasn't a sure indicator that Donnie was furious, him marching over to Mikey and getting right up in his little brother's face sure was.

Mikey curved backwards, away from his big brother. The further back that the youngest turtle tipped his body, the more his taller brother leaned over the top of him so that the two of them were each bent at odd angles. If either one of them leaned any further, they were both going to topple over.

Finally, as he stared up into the whites of Donnie's livid eyes, Mikey admitted to what he was being accused of saying earlier.

"Oh yeah . . . I did kind of say that, didn't I?" Mikey muttered and an embarrassed expression crossed his face as he added, "I guess it's possible I might have left my door open when I came down to the lab to ask you to fix my action figure . . . "

"You _might_ have left the door open?" Donnie asked, spitting the words out as though they were pure acid burning the inside of his mouth.

Mikey nodded and the face that he made was a clear acknowledgement of his guilt.

"Okay . . . so did you see Spike in your room when you got back from the lab?" Donnie asked in a somewhat sarcastic way. The genius then straightened his back up so that he was standing vertically again.

Mikey also straightened up, and, as he did so, he subtly started to back away from Donnie. He was a little leery to stay within arm's reach of his brainy brother, knowing just how he was about to respond to the purple-clad ninja's last question.

"Maybe . . . " Mikey uttered, darting his eyes about the lab so as to avoid eye contact with his big brother. The youngest turtle pursed his lips as though he was going to whistle, but no actual sound came out. It was just a ploy to look as though he was preoccupied with something.

"What do you mean 'maybe?' It was a yes or no question, Mikey!" Donnie barked and Mikey watched his big brother put on his 'angry' face for like the hundredth time that day.

 _Sheesh! And they say I'm the emotional one . . ._

"Well . . . I kind of forgot that I had brought Spike into my room until just a few minutes before I came down to tell you that I had lost him," Mikey informed his genius brother and the youngest turtle grimaced uneasily as soon as the words had parted ways with his lips, knowing that he probably should have brought that information up before.

 _Maybe Donnie won't point that out . . ._

"And you didn't think to bring this up before?" Came Donnie's immediate reply in his 'what were you thinking, Mikey?' voice.

 _Man! I can never slip anything past D. Why does he have to be so crazy smart?_

"My bad," Mikey said, shrugging his shoulders remorsefully.

Another growl rolled in the back of Donnie's throat, and then, he groped his face in his right hand for a good fifteen seconds before speaking his next words into his muffling palm. "Do you have any idea what Raph will do to us if Spike got out of the lair?"

Mikey cringed at the thought. He had once seen Raph tear the arm clean off of a Kraangdroid and use the severed appendage to blockade a door shut. And that unsuspecting Kraangdroid had committed far less of an offense to Raph than Mikey just had.

"Yeah, I'm kind of trying my best not to think about that, bro. Maybe we can go to a pet store and buy Raph another pet turtle. You know . . . like they do on TV all the time," Mikey recommended, not thinking his advice through too thoroughly before offering it. Then again, the youngest turtle had never been real big on thinking things through all that much. Not unless it involved deciding between which toppings to get when they were ordering pizza.

"That's your solution? Seriously? That never EVER works on TV! What makes you think it would work in real-life? Do you actually think that Raph wouldn't notice that it wasn't Spike? Plus, you and I can't exactly just stroll into the nearest pet store and buy a pet turtle!" Donnie protested and he stabbed a forefinger into the open palm of his other hand to emphasize each statement that he had just made.

"Sure we can, dude! I've got some money stored up in my piggy bank that we can use. People are constantly dropping money down storm drains, so I've got like twenty bucks in change built up," Mikey responded, not missing a beat, but clearly missing the point.

 _Don't yell . . . Don't yell . . . Don't yell . . ._ Was the mantra repeating in Donnie's head. This was not the first time that he had had to repeat that same mantra today, nor was it the second or the third time. He was pretty sure he must have been getting close to double digits by now . . .

"That's not what I meant, Mikey. What I was trying to get at was that people would freak right out if two giant talking turtles walked into a pet store to buy another turtle," Donnie elucidated for his little brother.

"Why? That's what a pet store is for," Mikey stated what he thought was painfully obvious, still not quite getting what his big brother was trying to tell him. In Mikey's mind, he was wondering if Donnie thought that pet turtles came from somewhere else. Like maybe a stork or something. Apparently, Donnie hadn't been paying attention all of those times that Master Splinter had told them about how he had purchased four baby turtles from a ' _pet store_.'

 _Donnie does tend to get distracted by sciency stuff and techno junk . . ._

"I know that's what a pet store is for! But you and I both know that we can't reveal ourselves to humans. Not only would we create mass hysteria, but Sensei would kill us for exposing ourselves to the public. Remember how mad he got when we told him about Spider Bytez getting that video of us on his phone?" Donnie snorted, flinging his arm out to side as he spoke just for a little extra emphasis. The genius came dangerously close to striking his standing toolbox as he did his somewhat theatric gesture.

Finally, Mikey figured out what Donnie had been trying to get at.

"Oh . . . right. The whole ninjas work in the shadows thing that Sensei's always going off about . . . Well, maybe April could help us. I'm sure she'd be willing to go to the pet store for us," Mikey proposed, holding up a forefinger to signal the arrival of what he thought was a bright idea.

Bright wasn't exactly what Donnie would have called it . . .

"Even if April did go to the pet store and pick up a pet turtle – which she's _**NOT**_ going to because you are _absolutely_ _**NOT**_ going to contact her and you are _definitely_ _**NOT**_ going to drag her into this – " Donnie paused for a moment to give Mikey a 'don't even think about it look' before continuing on with what he had to say. "That still wouldn't change the fact that Raph would know in a heartbeat if we tried to pull the shell over his eyes! Raph may be a lot of things – violent, reckless, irritable, ugly, vulgar, unpleasant, moody, mean, thoughtless, crude – " Being the walking thesaurus that he was, Donnie could have gone on with insulting adjectives to describe Raph for another half hour or more, but since time was of the essence here, he stopped at 'crude' and finished out the thought. "But he's not blind. He'd notice right away that it wasn't Spike, and then, our shells would be cooked for sure."

Realizing that his brainy brother was right, Mikey's freckly face turned down into a pout. His hope for survival was now hanging on by a thin yo-yo string.

Donnie recognized the pouty look on Mikey's face as a silent cry for his big brother to do something to save him, and, of course, kindhearted Donnie could not refuse such a tragic-looking plea. Especially not when it was coming from his only little brother. The genius turtle had never been able to stand seeing that sad look upon his younger sibling's normally happy face.

Donnie needed to figure out a way to fix this. After all, fixing stuff was what he was good at. That was why his baby brother had come to him in the first place.

"Okay, what we need to do now is get out there and find Spike before Raph notices that he's gone!" Donnie said with as much determination as he could summon. He then headed straight for the lab doors and unlocked them without waiting for Mikey's response.

As far as Donnie saw it, every moment that they spent standing around in the lab was another moment that they could be out there searching for Spike, and, every moment that they weren't searching for Spike was another moment that Raph might find out that his adored pet turtle was missing.

Pulling the lab doors open with practiced ease, Donnie stepped out into the main living space of the lair with Mikey following closely on his tail.

As Donnie began to scan the room for the small pet turtle, he came to the startling realization that Spike was no longer the only missing turtle in the lair.

A few seconds later, Mikey came to that same awful realization.

"Oh man! Where's Raph?" The youngest turtle squealed and his hands came up to clutch his head.

"I don't know," Donnie gasped, unable to raise his voice any louder than a whisper. His throat suddenly felt as though it was the size of a drinking straw and he could have sworn that he could actually feel his lungs shriveling up from the sudden lack of oxygen he was able to take in.

"M – maybe he went to the bathroom . . . or into the kitchen to get a drink . . . or to the Dojo to do some katas . . . or maybe, he took the Stealth Bike out to pick up some ice cream," Mikey said, firing off random possibilities for Raph's disappearance. It was not uncommon for Mikey to resort to panic guessing when things got really desperate. Sometimes, he could come up with some real doozies, like the time when Master Splinter didn't show up on time for morning practice and Mikey guessed that Sensei had been taken by giant mutated sewer pi-'rats'. The pun had been intended.

As Mikey continued to reel off possibilities – each one more preposterous than the last – Donnie stepped into the pit of the lair and nervously glanced around the large space as though he half-expected Raph to jump out at any time. The genius turtle started to visually collect evidence, noticing that the TV was turned off and there was a barely touched sandwich sitting on a plate next to the beanbag chair where Raph had once been.

Donnie's beautiful mind quickly went about processing what he had just observed, and, in a matter of seconds, he had determined where Raph was by the simple process of elimination.

If Raph had gone to the bathroom, he wouldn't have bothered turning the TV off since he would be back in a minute or so. If Raph had gone to the kitchen, he wouldn't have left the uneaten sandwich lying on the floor since every one of the brothers knew better than to leave food lying around unattended with Mikey living under the same roof. And, if Raph had gone to the Dojo to practice, they would have heard or seen him since the folding screens separating the two areas didn't do much to block out sound and they were semitransparent.

That meant that unless Raph had left the lair – which was highly unlikely since it was still broad daylight outside and he knew better than to risk being seen by humans – there was only one other option left.

 _Oh no . . ._

Then, came the unmistakable sound of Raph's voice, and, just as Donnie had suspected, it had clearly come from the direction of their bedrooms. Their hotheaded brother's voice was nearly loud enough to reduce the lair to nothing more than rubble and it only spoke one word.

"MIKEY!"

Never in all his life had the youngest turtle been so scared to hear the sound of his own name . . .

* * *

 _ **To be continued . . .**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: I hope you liked this chapter. There's only one chapter left to go on this story. Will Mikey and Donnie survive with their shells still intact? =O**_

 _ ***Once again, please review/favorite/follow this story if you are enjoying it. I would appreciate the feedback. Thank you for reading. ;) CJ**_


	7. Chapter 7 - The End

_***Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.**_

 _ ***Author's Notes: Here it is! It's the seventh and final chapter of 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever.' What's going to happen with Raph? More importantly, will Mikey and Donnie survive? And will they ever find Spike? You're about to find out. ;)**_

 _ **To everyone who has read, reviewed, 'favorited,' and followed this story, thank you so very much. I appreciate it more than words can express. I truly hope that you like how the story turns out. If you do like it, please let me know. I would love the feedback. Again, thanks for reading. ;) CJ**_

 _ **And now, on with the final chapter . . .**_

* * *

 **Chapter 7 – The End**

"Mikey!" Raph screamed and there was absolutely no question that the temperamental turtle was beside himself with insane fury.

"This is it, bro. It's been nice knowing you," Mikey whimpered and his big, blue eyes were wavering with thick layers of unshed tears as he peered up at his genius brother.

"Mikey! Get in here, now!" Raph thundered off and Mikey was pretty sure that his hotheaded brother's deep bellow had rattled the entire city above them like an earthquake.

After the second time that Raph had called out for him, Mikey hung his head down so low that his chin was touching his plastron. He realized that he had no choice but to accept his fate at this point. Sure, he could have tried fleeing from the lair and taken his chances topside. He could have opted to run away and say goodbye to the life that he knew. He could have chosen to leave his family behind and face the rest of his days, brokenhearted and alone, but ultimately, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Even in the face of his own possible demise, he couldn't leave his beloved family or home behind. Not when he knew that there wasn't enough time for him to unhook the TV and VCR before Raph came looking for him.

"Donnie . . . " Mikey could not hide the tremor in his voice as he spoke his brother's name. His face was sagging down into the most miserable of frowns.

"Yeah, Mikey?"

"I just want you to know that you've always been my favorite brother," Mikey said, slowly lifting his head so that he could look up at Donnie. As he pitifully stared up at his big brother, Mikey batted his eyelids over his huge, dewy eyes. Those dark, pleading orbs made him look hopelessly adorable, but the genius turtle wasn't about to fall for that old trick again.

"Gee, thanks, Mikey . . . but that's kind of hard to believe since you just used that exact same line on Leo last night when you were trying to get him to let you have the last slice of pizza," Donnie pointed out in a highly sarcastic manner, not all that moved by Mikey's attempt to be sweet.

Then, Mikey's name sounded a third time and it was most certainly not a charm like the old saying went . . .

"Come on, Mikey," Donnie muttered, starting towards Raph's room.

"W – wait! Donnie, you . . . you don't have to come with," Mikey said as he reached out and grabbed Donnie by the forearm to gently stop his big brother from moving any further. "This is all my fault and I have to take responsibility for what I've done. There's no need for us both of us getting mutilated over this."

Donnie turned to face his little brother and the genius turtle's expression was the very definition of devotion.

"We're brothers, Mikey. That means that I'll stand beside you, no matter what. No turtle left behind, remember? We're in this together," Donnie assured his little brother, flashing him a soft smile that quickly faded to better reflect the seriousness of the situation.

"Donnie . . . if we don't survive this . . . there's . . . there's something I need to tell you . . . " Mikey said, nibbling on the inside of his bottom lip sheepishly before continuing. "You remember last week, when the TV antennae broke and I said that it must have been Master Splinter when he was watching his soaps?"

"Yes . . . " Donnie nodded and patiently waited for Mikey to continue.

"Well . . . I lied. Master Splinter didn't do it! It was totally me, bro! I knew that if I blamed Sensei, you wouldn't question it. You would just fix the TV like I wanted," Mikey confessed and he looked up at Donnie with more shame painted on his face than the brainy turtle ever remembered seeing from his little brother before.

"I know, Mikey," Donnie responded in a quiet, soothing tone.

This completely threw Mikey for a loop. He had expected his brainy big brother to flip right out over the revelation, not stand there and calmly tell him that he already knew.

 _Wait a second! He already knew!_ _Dude!_

"You knew? The whole time? And you didn't say anything?" Mikey shrieked, and then, his bright eyes grew wide with sudden realization. "It's 'cause you really _do_ have video cameras hidden all over the lair, don't you?" Mikey asked, releasing Donnie's arm so that his hand was free to point an accusing finger at his big brother.

"No, Mikey. For the last time, I do _not_ have video cameras all over the lair. The reason I knew it was you was because there were cheesy fingerprints all over the antennae box. Who else in the lair eats Chee-Z Balls on a regular basis?" Donnie asked with a knowing smirk.

It was another one of those rhetorical questions that Mikey really didn't need to answer, but he did, nonetheless.

"You don't know that it wasn't Master Splinter! He's a rat! Everybody knows how much rats love cheese!" Mikey argued, even though he had already confessed to the crime in question just a few seconds before. Claiming that he didn't do something was sort of a force of habit for the youngest brother. It was his automatic defense mechanism.

Donnie rolled his eyes, but he could not stop a softhearted smile from spreading across his face.

"Donnie," Mikey breathed out.

"Yeah, Mikey?"

"You're the best big brother a turtle could ever ask for."

This time, there was no mistaking the genuineness in Mikey's words. Then, without any warning, the youngest turtle charged forward and threw his arms around Donnie, pulling the genius into a shell-crushing hug. The embrace was so unreserved and so intense, Mikey hadn't even realized that he had lifted his taller brother several inches off of the floor in all of his enthusiasm.

Donnie grunted and squirmed quietly in Mikey's grasp. His arms were awkwardly pinned at his sides by his little brother's unremitting grip around his midsection. Donnie imagined he probably looked like he had been fitted with a Mikey straightjacket.

"Thanks, Mikey. And you're my favorite little brother," Donnie wheezed out.

Finally, Mikey released his hold and set the brainy turtle back down on solid ground.

"Aw, thanks, D. That means a – Hey! Wait! I'm your only little brother!" The youngest turtle howled, placing his hands on his hips in a huff.

"Yeah . . . but my point still stands," Donnie said with a gap-toothed grin.

Mikey grinned back with all the radiance of the sun. Upon seeing his baby brother's happy face, even if only for an instant, Donnie felt a familiar sense of warmth wash over him. Mikey may have been able to drive him crazy sometimes, but there was no one else on Earth that Donnie was as crazy about as he was his baby brother.

"Come on, Mikey. Let's just get this over with before Raph comes out here looking for you."

Donnie stretched out a hand out to affectionately pat Mikey on the shoulder before walking towards the steps that led to the dormitory area.

"I love you, D," Mikey cooed as he followed Donnie towards Raph's room, marching as though he was heading straight for the gallows.

"I love you, too, Mikey," The purple-masked ninja sighed out as he slowly approached his older brother's bedroom door. In the back of Donnie's mind, he could hear the sound of 'Taps' being played. Luckily, his little brother couldn't hear what was inside of his head.

Within seconds, they had reached their destination.

The door to Raph's room was indeed open and the incensed turtle could be seen stomping around inside, instantly confirming their worst fears.

Donnie entered the room first with the intention of playing the role of the peacekeeper. Mikey entered closely behind his brainy brother with the intention of playing the role of the lovable coward. The role Raph was going to play was quite obvious to everyone, as it was the same role that he always played. He was already in character for the part of the seething, deranged, frightening brother – a role for which he was born to play. One that he should have received several prestigious awards for by now . . .

Immediately upon his entry, Donnie went about the always difficult task of trying to calm his ill-tempered older brother down.

"Now, Raph . . . let's be reasonable about this," Donnie pleaded, squeamishly stepping towards his big brother and holding up his hands to show submission, but the red-banded turtle totally disregarded the amiable gesture and pushed the lightest brother aside as though he weighed nothing. This caused Donnie to stumble sideways, leaving Mikey completely vulnerable.

With the genius out of the way, Raphael was free to trudge over to his youngest brother and get right up in his face.

Mikey could have sworn that he could hear Raph's heart pounding, but he quickly realized that it was just his own panicked palpitations that he was listening to.

"Listen, Raph! Before you kill me, give me a chance to explain! Just hear me out, bro!" Mikey practically screeched as he shrunk away from his visibly enraged big brother. Their close proximity was making Mikey extremely uncomfortable. In fact, Raph was so close to his face, Mikey could even see all of the little squiggly blood vessels in his brother's protruding eyes. Mikey would have commented on how the red vessels in Raph's eyes were almost the same color as his big brother's mask if he wasn't so afraid that the hothead would strangle him for saying so.

"What is there to explain, Mikey?" Raph growled and the youngest turtle cringed when he felt the heat of his brother's breath lapping against his skin.

At this point, Donnie had managed to regain his footing after having been carelessly shoved aside just moments ago. He quickly tried to reenter the fray, hoping to save his baby brother's shell from certain destruction.

"Raph, Mikey was only – " Donnie attempted to defend his little brother's actions, but Raph cut him off.

"Zip it, Brainiac!"

Raph tore his eyes away from Mikey for an instant, just so that he could flash a vicious glare at his genius brother. He then locked his gaze right back on his terrified baby brother. The turtle in red hovered directly over Mikey as he asked his next question. "What did I tell you about going in my room, Mikey?"

Mikey was slightly confused by the inquiry. Raph wasn't generally one to dance around the point. He was more of a get right to the jugular of a conversation kind of turtle.

"You mean just now . . . when you yelled for me to get in here?" Mikey asked timidly. He was pretty sure that it was some kind of a trick question. The kind that no matter how he responded, Raph was going to hurt him anyway.

"No! I mean the other five thousand times that I have told you to stay the heck out of my room!" Raph screamed in Mikey's face and the youngest brother was unpleasantly reminded of how he had not long ago told Donnie that spit was gross . . .

Mikey let out a sad, little whimper and his green-colored skin lightened by several shades.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?" Was Raph's unsympathetic response to Mikey's whimper.

Mikey peered up at Raph through squinted eyes, crossing his fingers and toes that his brother wouldn't aim for the face when he finally let loose.

 _Anything but my super cute, baby face . . ._

It was then, when Mikey was peeking up through his quarter-mast eyes, that the youngest turtle noticed his genius brother was frantically pointing at something behind Raph, but Mikey couldn't see what it was on account of his angry brother's big shell being in the way. If Mikey didn't know any better, he would have guessed that Donnie was pointing at Raph's Charred Walls drum set.

Mikey hardly thought it was an appropriate time for his brainiac brother to break out into a drum solo, but far be it for Mikey of all turtles to question anyone for doing something at an inappropriate time. After all, he _was_ the master of bad-timing. But still, it was kind of weird that Donnie was the one doing it. Random acts of spontaneity weren't really Donnie's thing. That, and Mikey was pretty darn sure that his smartest brother didn't know how to play the drums. Of course, that never would have stopped Mikey from doing it.

Then, it dawned on Mikey that Donnie always did stuff for a reason.

 _D must be planning on creating a distraction. Rock on, bro . . ._ Mikey mentally cheered his brainy brother on.

"Well . . . Did you?" Raph interrupted Mikey's musical train of thought.

"I – I don't know," Mikey answered without much confidence. In all of his excitement over Donnie's impending drum solo, he had sort of forgotten what the question had been.

"I know you were in here, Mikey!" Raph howled, shoving a thick, green finger right between Mikey's eyes. The second oldest turtle's head looked like it was about to ignite into flames like a big, green torch.

From over Raph's shoulder, Mikey could see that Donnie had moved slightly closer. He was now vigorously shaking his head from side to side and waving his hands out in front of him as if he was trying to tell the youngest brother something, but Mikey had never been very good at reading sign language.

Raph's face drawing nearer made Mikey veer his eyes back onto his highly explosive big brother.

"Admit it!" Raph snapped and he ground his exposed teeth in an intimidating manner. He then grabbed a hold of the top of Mikey's plastron and gave his little brother a good shake.

Mikey cringed at both the sound of Raph's molars gnashing together and the horrible feeling of being shaken like he was a giant baby rattle.

"Uh, Mikey – " Donnie tried to interrupt, but Raph once again cut him short.

"Stay outta this, Donnie! Go play with your chemistry set or something!"

Donnie's face creased with irritation as he backed away, but he had not given up.

"Okay, okay! I admit it! I took – " Mikey started to confess, but the loud sound of a cymbal being struck stopped him cold.

Both Mikey and Raph turned their heads to see Donnie standing there with a drum stick in his hand. With all eyes on him, Donnie's face blushed with a crimson hue as he shyly lifted his shoulders and let out a nervous chuckle. He then tucked the drum stick behind his back in an effort to conceal the evidence, but it was kind of a wasted effort since they had already seen the stick in his hand, not to mention they could still hear the sound of the suspended cymbal that he had just hit reverberating in the air.

"What the heck did you do that for?" Raph growled and he released his grip on Mikey so that he was free to clench his hands into tight fists at his sides as he glared over at Donnie. If looks were capable of killing, the genius turtle would have ceased to exist.

Donnie lifted his hand that wasn't clinging onto the drum stick and rubbed the back of his head apprehensively. He then shifted his gaze to the floor to avoid his older brother's murderous stare.

"S – sorry. I – I don't know what got into me . . . " Came Donnie's timid reply and another nervous chuckle.

"Sorry? You just about scared Spike out his shell!" Raph barked out, making his way over to the drum set in two violent strides.

Donnie immediately stepped out of Raph's path, knowing full well that if he didn't, he would get shoved out of the way again. Once Donnie felt that he was safely out of his charging brother's way, he set the drum stick down on top of the cymbal that he had struck not all that long ago. He then shifted his eyes towards Mikey to see that his little brother's face was all scrunched up in confusion as he attempted to put the pieces together.

With big, curious eyes, Mikey stared over at Donnie for a few moments, then, at Raph, who was now stooped over his drum set, and finally, he stared at the percussion instruments themselves. He looked back at Donnie for a second or three before doing a double-take on the drums.

That was when his brain finally figured it out.

There, sitting upon the snare drum, was his salvation.

"Holy chalupa! It's Spike!" Mikey exclaimed, making no attempt to hide his glee. He was so happy he could have done a backflip, but there wasn't enough space in Raph's room to do a flip without knocking half of the hothead's things over. Something like that would have most likely resulted in his untimely death, which would have been rather ironic since his whole reason for doing the backflip in the first place was because he wasn't about to die.

Donnie shook his head from side to side and Mikey wasn't sure if his brother was trying to stop him from saying anything further or if he was just disgusted. It could have been a combination of both . . .

"Thank you, Captain Obvious. Of course it's Spike, you idiot!" Were the harsh words that snapped Mikey out of his thoughts.

Mikey watched in amazement as Raph placed his pet turtle atop his left shoulder. Mikey could have kissed that turtle right now.

 _Spike, of course . . . not Raph . . ._

"Oh, Spike! I'm so happy to see you!" Mikey gushed with a big, dopey grin. He then clasped his hands together in joy, causing Donnie to roll his eyes and do a mental facepalm.

 _Way to be subtle, Mikey . . ._

"There's something seriously wrong with you. You know that, right?" Raph snorted as he watched his baby brother making googly eyes at Spike.

"If being happy to see Spike is wrong, then I don't wanna be right," Mikey basically sang out as he walked up beside Raph so that he could rub his brother's pet turtle underneath his little chin. Spike's response to the contact was to blankly stare at Mikey with his green eyes. Raph's response, however, was to angrily stare at Mikey with his green eyes.

"You're never right, Mikey! And speaking of you being wrong, let's talk about you sneaking into my room again!"

Raph folded his arms in front of his chest in order to strike a more hostile stance.

"Wh – what do you mean?" Mikey asked and he acted as though he hadn't the faintest idea what Raph was talking about when all four turtles in the room knew that wasn't true.

"Cut the crap, Mikey! I know you were in my room again! I left the latest issue of 'Green With Envy' on my bed this morning and when I came back in here to read it, it was sitting on my stereo! Don't even try to deny that you're the one who did it!" Raph roared, narrowing his eyes into angry slivers.

"Why would you think it was me?" Mikey inquired, pointing to himself, apparently still attempting to uphold his innocence.

"It's always you, Mikey!" Raph stated, seizing hold of the finger that Mikey was pointing at himself with and twisting the digit until his little brother started to cry out 'mercy.'

"I've told you over and over again to stay out of my room, Mikey! If I find out that you've been in here again, I will crack your shell like an egg! Now, get out so I can hang out with the only turtle in the lair that doesn't annoy me!"

Raph then softened his tone to almost lame levels before saying, "Isn't that right, Spike?"

Ignoring his throbbing finger, Mikey tipped his head to the side and blinked repeatedly before sweetly saying, "Ahhh! Are you two gonna hang out and play together?"

"No! We're gonna read the comic book that you stole! You better not have damaged it . . . and don't you dare tell me what happened in the issue or so help me!" Raph left the threat unfinished so that Mikey could use his overactive imagination to complete what remained of the sentence. The hothead then flashed Mikey a ferocious glare which made the youngest turtle cower, but only for a moment. Mikey quickly recovered from the scare tactic and went right back to being his chipper self.

"Well, when you're done reading your comic, you should totally come hang out with us, 'cause Leo promised me that when he got home, we were gonna have an epic Atomic Robo-X showdown, bro. You can get in on the competition if you want," Mikey offered with an inviting smile.

"Play games with you and Fearless? I'd rather reorganize my entire collection of 'Modern Ninja Magazine.' In fact, I think I will . . . right after I read _my_ comic book. Not that that's any of your business. Now, both of you, get out of my room!"

Raph extended a forefinger towards the exit as he threatened his brothers with his angry expression.

To stick around and wait to be told to get out of Raph's room a third time would most certainly have meant death, so Donnie and Mikey promptly backed out of the room. Just as they stepped over the threshold of the doorway to their older brother's room, the door was slammed shut and the 'stop' sign hanging on the outside of the door nearly hit them in the face.

Just like that, the ordeal was over . . .

After a full minute had passed of them just staring at the door in shock, Donnie and Mikey turned towards each other and exchanged disbelieving glances for another minute. Then, the two of them walked away and headed for the main living space of the lair. Still stunned over what had just transpired, they did not utter a word until they climbed down into the pit.

"I can't believe that just happened," Mikey said, plopping down onto the couch. He scratched his head quizzically before saying, "Wait! What did just happen?"

"I'm not exactly sure. I'm guessing that you must have left the door to Raph's room open when you took Spike. Then, when you left your door open to come see me in the lab, Spike must have instinctively crawled back into Raph's room," Donnie theorized, although he was having a pretty hard time believing it himself.

"So you don't think that Spike just maternalized out of nowhere?" Mikey asked, seemingly disappointed by Donnie's rather boring explanation. Mikey was sort of hoping that something more supernatural or mind-blowing had just transpired rather than it simply being the result of him absentmindedly leaving the doors to both rooms open.

"The word is 'materialized,' Mikey, and no, I do not think that. What I do think is that you'd better stay away from Raph for a while. At least until he calms down a bit," Donnie warned, putting on his 'in all-seriousness' face so that his little brother wouldn't mistake the magnitude of what he had just said. The genius turtle knew without a doubt that if Mikey went and did anything to bother Raph at this point, the consequences would be similar to poking an already angry hornet's nest with a short stick.

"No problemo, bro! I'll just stay out here and get warmed up for me and Leo's Atomic Robo-X showdown. I'm so totally gonna beat Leo's high-score this time. I can feel it in my shell!" Mikey declared as he pushed himself up off of the couch. He then stretched out his arms, hands, and fingers, limbering up for some serious arcade action. Skullerax was calling out his name and he had to heed the call. And this time, he was going to nail that bonehead with the eye beam.

 _Aw, yeah! You're about to get spanked, son . . ._ Mikey boasted in his head.

"Good luck with that. I'll be in my lab." Donnie purposely did not tag the words 'if anyone needs me' on the end of his last sentence. He figured saying something along that line was just an open invitation for Mikey to interrupt him again while he was trying to conduct his experiments. He had already lost enough time as it was . . .

As Donnie turned towards his lab and started to walk away from Mikey, he heard the sound of his baby brother's voice behind him.

"Uh . . . Donnie . . . "

"Yeah, Mikey?"

The genius turtle spun back around just as he reached the steps to his lab.

"Did Raph just say that he was gonna reorganize his collection of 'Modern Ninja Magazine?'" Mikey asked in a tentative voice as he jabbed the tips of his forefingers together.

"Yeah . . . why?"

All of the sudden, Donnie was feeling much more anxious than just seconds before.

"Oh . . . uh . . . no reason . . . "

There was an incriminating look of pure innocence on Mikey's freckled face as he clasped his hands together behind his back and rocked on his heels. He cast his gaze to the side to intentionally avoid his big brother's stare.

"Mikey!" Donnie snorted and his anxiety transformed into irritation.

"Chillax, bro! Sheesh! It's nothing . . . really. I was just asking a simple question. No need to get your shell all bent out of shape," Mikey said, motioning for Donnie to calm down.

Donnie narrowed one eye skeptically, clearly not convinced by what Mikey had just said, but he decided not to interrogate his brother any further on the matter for time's sake. He instead made a mental note to leave the lab door open just in case it turned out to be more than 'nothing.' Knowing Mikey as well as he did, Donnie was fully aware that when dealing with his little brother, even _nothing_ was _always_ something . . .

"Okay, I'm going to get back to work. Oh, and Mikey . . . Could you please try to keep it quiet out here? I only have one canister of mutagen left, so I really need to be able to concentrate on my experiment," Donnie said in all earnestness.

The importance of his big brother's request was not lost on Mikey.

"You can count on me, D! You won't even know I'm out here!" Mikey vowed, inflating his chest out proudly.

Somehow, Donnie highly doubted what Mikey had just said, but he chose not to comment. He was about to walk away, when his little brother's voice sounded out once again.

"Donnie . . . You're the best, bro . . . Thanks for everything," Mikey's words were of the utmost sincerity. He stood there in the pit, looking up at Donnie with an exuberant grin that spread across the entire span of his round face.

"Hey, that's what big brothers are for. It's my job to look out for you, Mikey . . . I always will," Donnie said with such fondness in his tone, it made Mikey want to run up and attack his brother with affection. It took a whole lot of willpower, but the youngest turtle somehow managed to resist the overwhelming temptation to bear hug his brainy brother again.

"Have fun with your game, Mikey."

Donnie offered up a soft, warm smile before slipping through the open doors of his lab to get back to the project that he had been working on prior to 'Operation: Spike Hunt.' As much as he would have liked to have played games or read comics books like his brothers, he knew that he had retro mutagen to create.

From the pit of the lair, Mikey silently watched his genius brother walk across his lab and settle down into the task chair at his desk, just where he had been sitting when the youngest turtle had interrupted him with the whole Spike saga. Mikey guessed that Donnie would probably pick up right where he had left off before he had bugged him. The brainiac had always been a bit of a workaholic.

Mikey stared at his big brother for a prolonged moment with a mixture of pride and admiration warming his insides. He had meant it when he had said that Donnie was the best. Mikey loved his big brother more than anything in the whole wide world, and what had happened today had only made that love grow stronger.

Sure, Donnie may have grumbled and complained about having to help him out, and, yes, Donnie may have gotten super peeved and even wigged out a few times during their search for Spike, but, in the end, his big brother had done all that he could to save his shell, including putting his own shell on the line for him. In the end, Donnie had stood beside him and done everything in his power to protect him, just like he always had.

 _You're all kinds of awesome, D . . ._

Smiling at Donnie, even though he knew his older brother wouldn't see it, Mikey then turned and made his way over to his favorite arcade game. Leo would be home soon and Mikey needed to get warmed up so that he could show his oldest brother how things were done.

As he stepped up to the console of the game, Mikey couldn't help but to smile to himself once again, content with the happy ending that had come to be. In his mind, he thought that because they had found Spike, everything was going to be okay.

Little did he know, in just a matter of a few hours, Spike was going to change their lives forever . . .

If the youngest turtle would have known then just how badly 'Spike' was going to hurt his big brother . . . Well, he would have taken that monster as far away from the lair as turtley possible and abandoned him without a single ounce of remorse.

But that's another story . . .

 **The End**

* * *

 _ ***Author's Notes: I really do hope that all of you enjoyed reading 'Mikey's Worst Move Ever.' I also hope that I was able to make you chuckle at least a couple of times throughout this story.**_

 _ **Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read this story and to those who 'favorited' and followed it. I appreciate it more than you know. I would also like to convey a very special thank you to those of you who took the time to provide me with reviews and feedback on this story**_ ** _(_** **BubblyShell22, Pilyarquitect, FanGirlFreak16, SewerSurfin, The Glittery Hedgehog Ninja, CharmyXcream14, FFX2player, Silexwitch, Childish 'paw, TMNT Fan, LetTheAdventureBegin, and K15a30zx)** _ **. Your support and comments helped me tremendously. I was incredibly worried that no one would like this story because it was so different from my other stories, but your kind words were what encouraged me to keep going with it. Thank you so much for that. You are all awesome! 8}**_

 _ **Just so you know, there will be a sequel to this story in the future. It's called 'Slash's Revenge' and the story takes place three weeks after the episode 'Slash and Destroy.'**_

 _ **Thank you all, again.**_ ** _Please favorite/review if you enjoyed this story. I'd love to know . . ._** _ **;) CJ**_


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